LELAND    STANFORD    JUNIOR    UNIVERSITY    PUBLICATIONS 
UNIVERSITY  SERIES 


EMERSON 


A  STATEMENT  OF  NEW  ENGLAND  TRANSCENDENTALISM 

AS  EXPRESSED  IN  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 
ITS  CHIEF  EXPONENT 


BY 

HENRY  DAVID  GRAY 

Associate  Professor  of  English 


STANFORD  UNIVERSITY,  CALIFORNIA 
PUBLISHED  BY  THE   UNIVERSITY 

1917 


\ 


STANFORD  UNIVERSITY 
PRESS 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION   7 

CHAPTER  I.  Beginnings  of  New  England  Transcendentalism: 
Channing  and  the  Unitarian  Movement ;  Hedge  and  the  "Tran 
scendental  Club" 18 

CHAPTER  II.     Emerson:     His  Philosophical  Attitude  and  Method.  .     25 

CHAPTER  III.  The  Philosophy  of  Emerson.  Nature,  the  Over- 
Soul,  and  the  Individual 33 

CHAPTER  IV.     The     Philosophy     of     Emerson,     continued.       The 

Theories  of  Evolution  and  of  Emanation 40 

CHAPTER  V.     The  Philosophy  of  Emerson,  continued.    The  Identity 

of  Subject  and  Object 47 

CHAPTER  VI.     The  Epistemological  Basis  of  Emerson's  Philosophy: 

The  Theory  of  Intuition 56 

CHAPTER  VII.  The  Religious  Implications  of  Emerson's  Philos 
ophy:  The  Nature  of  God;  Human  Responsibility;  Immor 
tality  61 

CHAPTER  VIII.     Emerson's  Ethics:     The  Moral  Law;    Origin  of 

the  Virtues ;   Optimism 70 

CHAPTER  IX.  Emerson's  Contribution  to  Sociology :  The  Indi 
vidual  and  the  State;  the  Brook  Farm  Idea;  Theory  of 
Education So 

CHAPTER  X.     Emerson's  Esthetics:    The  Meaning  of  Beauty;    the 

Utility  of  Art 95 

BIBLIOGRAPHY   105 

INDEX   109 


3GG478 


PREFACE 

This  thesis  was  completed  just  at  the  time  when  Emerson's  Journals 
were  announced  for  publication.  Thus  it  happened  that  the  writer  had 
either  to  print  an  essay  which  was  antiquated  in  advance,  or  wait  until 
the  Journals  could  be  read  and  the  book  revised  in  accordance  with  the 
"new  evidence."  The  delay  of  publication — prolonged  beyond  all  ex 
pectation — was  granted  by  the  Columbia  Faculty  of  Philosophy,  and  at 
the  same  time  permission  was  given  to  add  chapters  on  Emerson's  con 
tribution  to  ethics,  sociology,  and  esthetics,  in  order  that  a  certain  com 
pleteness  might  be  given  to  the  subject.  The  Journals  continued  to  ap 
pear  at  intervals  until  1914.  No  revision  of  the  original  thesis  has  been 
made  necessary  by  them,  but  they  have  gone  far  to  confirm  the  attitude 
which  was  taken  at  the  start;  for  the  whole  purport  of  this  study  was 
to  trace  the  development  of  Emerson's  thought  and  to  find  how  far  the 
ideas  to  which  he  gives  a  fragmentary  and  poetic  rendering  are  consist 
ent  parts  of  a  larger  theory.  It  has  always  been  known  that  it  was  Emer 
son's  custom  to  make  use  in  his  essays  and  addresses  of  ideas  which  he 
had  jotted  down  in  his  note-books  years  before;  the  publication  of  these 
note-books  reveals  just  how  and  when  the  idea  first  came  into  his  mind. 
But  inasmuch  as  these  ideas  have  received  a  more  perfect  expression  in 
the  essays  and  addresses,  it  has  seldom  been  found  necessary  or  advis 
able  to  quote  from  them;  and  since  there  has  been  little  of  importance 
concerning  Emerson's  philosophy  published  since  1904,  the  essay  as  now 
set  forth  stands  practically  as  it  originally  did  through  Chapter  VII. 
References  to  the  Journals  here  and  there,  as  well  as  to  Mr.  Goddard's 
Studies  in  New  England  Transcendentalism,  Mr.  Firkins'  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson,  and  Professor  Woodbridge  Riley's  American  Thought,  with 
some  other  contributions  to  the  subject  made  since  this  essay  was  first 
written,  have  been  added  without  changing  more  than  the  immediate 
context. 

References  to  the  works  of  Emerson  are  to  the  paging  of  the  Riv 
erside  edition,  since  the  thesis  was  written  before  the  Centenary  edition 
was  completed ;  but  the  notes  of  Dr.  Edward  Waldo  Emerson,  as  well 
as  the  additional  matter  included  in  the  later  edition,  have  been  read  in 
connection  with  the  Journals  for  this  revision  of  the  essay. 

After  so  many  years  I  still  remember  with  gratitude  the  friendly 

[5] 


6  EMERSON 

assistance  given  me  by  Professor  Frederick  J.  E.  Woodbridge,  under 
whose  direction  the  thesis  was  prepared;  that  it  has  so  many  rhetorical 
as  well  as  philosophical  shortcomings  is  due  largely  to  the  fact  that  it 
had  to  be  written  for  the  most  part  without  his  personal  guidance. 
My  thanks  are  due  also  to  Professor  Warner  Fite  of  Indiana  University, 
to  Professor  Killis  Campbell  of  the  University  of  Texas,  to  Professor 
John  Erskine  of  Columbia  University,  and  to  Professor  H.  W.  Stuart  of 
Leland  Stanford  Junior  University,  for  friendly  criticisms  and  sugges 
tions.  There  are,  as  always,  other  obligations  not  the  less  appreciated 
because  not  publicly  acknowledged. 

H.  D.  G. 
STANFORD  UNIVERSITY,  May  1917. 


EMERSON 

A  STATEMENT  OF  NEW  ENGLAND  TRANSCENDENTALISM 

AS  EXPRESSED  IN  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 
ITS  CHIEF  EXPONENT 


INTRODUCTION 

The  term  "New  England  Transcendentalism"  is  applied,  first,  to  the 
various  phases  of  idealism  which  found  expression  in  New7  England 
during,  roughly,  the  second  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century.  But  an 
examination  of  the  attitude  of  that  group  of  men  who  are  recognized 
as  the  New  England  Transcendentalists  soon  reveals  the  fact  that  they 
themselves  were  not  primarily  concerned  with  philosophy  for  its  own 
sake,  but  imported  and  modified  the  thought  of  Plato,  of  the  Neo- 
Platonists  and  Mystics,  or  of  Kant  and  his  successors,  merely  as  a  basis 
for  their  attitude  toward  religion  and  conduct;  that  they  thought  of 
Transcendentalism  not  only  as  a  philosophy  but  as  a  "movement" ;  that 
however  they  might  differ  in  theory,  they  were  Transcendentalists  by 
virtue  of  a  common  impulse.  "This  spirit  of  the  time,"  says  Emerson  in 
his  manifesto  in  the  opening  number  of  The  Dial,  "is  in  every  form  a 
protest  against  usage,  and  a  search  for  principles."1  This  is  a  second 
meaning  of  the  term  "New  England  Transcendentalism."  A  third  mean 
ing,  which  has  been  the  source  of  much  confusion,  may  be  summed  up 
in  the  phrase  "Transcendental  nonsense."  The  Transcendental  move 
ment  was  attended  by  a  general  spirit  of  unrest  and  hostility  to  convention. 
Whims  and  absurdities  of  all  sorts  were  in  the  air.  "Bran  had  its 
prophets,  and  the  presartorial  simplicity  of  Adam  its  martyrs,"  writes 
Lowell,  in  his  delightful  essay  on  Thoreau.  "Everybody  had  a  mission 
(with  a  capital  M)  to  attend  to  everybody  else's  business.  No  brain  but 
had  its  private  maggot,  which  must  have  found  pitiably  short  commons 
sometimes."  And  in  the  same  spirit  Hawthorne,  in  his  American  Note- 
Books,  speaks  of  Margaret  Fuller's  refractory  cow  at  Brook  Farm  as  a 
"transcendental  heifer."  The  name  New  England  Transcendentalism 
has  been  applied  to  cover  all  the  wild  vagaries  of  the  time. 

1  "The  Editors  to  the  Reader,"  Dial,  I,  3. 


8  EMERSON 

There  was  some  excuse  for  this.  The  first  announcements  of  Tran 
scendentalism  2  were  incomprehensible,  and  hence  an  immediate  source 
of  mirth,  to  "ordinary"  and  "sensible"  people ;  an  abstruseness  of  utter 
ance  was  so  often  combined  with  eccentricity  of  conduct  that  it  was  easy 
to  laugh  at  both  of  them  together.3  Even  the  scholarly  and  the  learned 
were  bewildered  by  the  first  writings  of  Emerson4  and  Alcott;  and  of 
the  latter,  at  least,  the  absurd  side,  both  in  the  "Orphic  Sayings"  and  in 
the  Fruitlands  venture,  is  still  quite  apparent.  "I  was  given  to  under 
stand,"  says  Dickens  in  his  American  Notes,  "that  whatever  was  unin 
telligible  would  be  certainly  Transcendental." 5  "Transcendentalism" 
was  the  name  applied  to  whatever  lay  beyond  the  realm  of  common 
sense,  whether  in  thought,  language,  or  behavior.6 

The  connection  between  the  half-mad  representatives  of  what  they 
called  "The  Newness"  and  the  more  serious  exponents  of  Transcendent 
alism  proper  was  so  close  that  it  is  hard  to  know  where  to  draw  the  line. 
Emerson  himself,  the  most  conspicuously  sane  man  among  them  all,  was 
thought  mad  in  the  first  extreme  expression  of  his  individualism,  and  the 
most  foolish  of  his  associates  had,  or  thought  he  had,  his  own  peculiar 
variation  of  the  "intuitional  philosophy."  It  is  impossible  to  set  up  some 
arbitrary  standard  of  sense  and  sanity,  and  say  that  whoever  fell  below 
this  standard  was  not  a  transcendentalist.  It  is  better  to  admit  frankly 
that  all  three  meanings  of  the  term  are  quite  legitimate  provided  that  no 
one  meaning  is  used  to  the  exclusion  of  the  other  two ;  that  New 
England  Transcendentalism  had  its  philosophic  side,  which  in  Emerson 

2  I  use  the  word  always  as  referring  to  New  England  Transcendentalism. 

3  As,  for  example,  in  such  a  man  as  Charles  Newcomb,  not  to  mention  others. 
One  need  not  be  a  philistine  for  failing  to  take  such  a  man  with  perfect  sobriety. 
"Emerson  was  convinced  that  Newcomb's  remarkable  subtlety  of  mind  amounted  to 
genius,"  says  Lindsay  Swift   (Brook  Farm,  p.   199),  and  proceeds  to  quote  a  sen 
tence  from  "Dolon,"  which  appeared  in  The  Dial,  as  showing  "if  not  genius,  its 
next  of  kin."     Newcomb's  absurdities  of  conduct  were  also  famous. 

4  Holmes  compares  Professor  Francis  Bowen  reviewing  Emerson's  Nature,  to 
"a  sagacious  pointer  making  the  acquaintance  of  a  box  tortoise."     There  is  more 
than  humor  in  this ;    yet  Bowen  showed  more  comprehension  of  Transcendentalism 
than  any  other  critic  on  the  "outside." 

5  The  members  of  the  group  were  of  course  conscious  of  their  reputation.     "I 
should   have    told   them   at   once   that    I    was    a   transcendentalist,"    says    Thoreau. 
"That  would  have  been  the  shortest  way  of  telling  them  that  they  would  not  under 
stand  my  explanations."    Journal,  V,  4. 

8  Emerson  breaks  into  delicious  raillery  when  speaking  of  the  whims  and 
oddities  of  some  of  his  associates ;  while  two  such  good  transcendentalists  as  James 
Freeman  Clarke  and  C.  P.  Cranch  illustrated  Emerson  himself  with  humorous 
drawings  for  their  own  amusement.  See  G.  W.  Cooke,  "Contributors  to  The 
Dial,"  Journal  of  Speculative  Philosophy,  XIX,  236. 


INTRODUCTION  9 

at  least  found  a  worthy  and  noble  expression ;  that  primarily  it  was  a 
movement  in  religion,  literature,  and  conduct ;  and  that  its  camp  followers 
were  disproportionately  numerous  and  noisy. 

Though  the  distinction  between  the  philosophical  and  practical  sides 
of  New  England  Transcendentalism  was  made  by  Noah  Porter  as  early 
as  i842,7  this  distinction  was  never  recognized  by  its  adherents,  and  has 
seldom  been  taken  into  account  by  its  critics.  We  find  Transcendental-  \ 
ism  described  now  as  a  philosophy,8  now  as  an  expression  of  religious 
faith,9  and  again  as  a  wave  of  reform.10  Frothingham,  who  has  written 
the  history  of  the  movement  from  the  standpoint  of  a  sympathizer  and 
former  adherent,  defines  Transcendentalism  from  all  three  points  of 
view  without  making  the  least  distinction  in  his  use  of  the  term:  "Tran 
scendentalism  was  a  distinct  philosophical  system.  Practically  it  was  an 
assertion  of  the  inalienable  worth  of  man  ;  theoretically  it  was  an  as 
sertion  of  the  immanence  of  divinity  iii"instinct,  the  transference  of 
supernatural  attributes  to  the  natural  constitution  of  mankind."  Again, 
''Transcendentalism  is  usually  spoken  of  as  a  philosophy.  It  is  more 
justly  regarded  as  a  gospel.  As  a  philosophy  it  is  ...  so  far  from  uni 
form  in  its  structure,  that  it  may  rather  be  considered  several  systems 
than  one."  And  yet  again,  "Transcendentalism  was  ...  an  enthusiasm,/ 
a  wave  of  sentiment,  a  breath  of  mind."1 

But  even  the  sum  of  all  these  views  of  Transcendentalism  does  not 
exhaust  its  content.  A  philosophy,  a  gospel,  a  wave  of  sentiment,— 
Transcendentalism  was  also  a  challenge.  "The  problem  of  transcend 
ental  philosophy,"  says  Theodore  Parker,  "is  no  less  than  this,  to  revise 
the  experience  of  mankind  and  try  its  teachings  by  the  nature  of  man- 

7  'The  word  Transcendentalism,  as  used  at  the  present  day,  has  two  applica 
tions,  one  of  which  is  popular  and  indefinite,  the  other,  philosophical  and  precise. 
In  the  former  sense  it  describes  men,  rather  than  opinions,  since  it  is  freely  ex 
tended  to  those  who  hold  opinions,  not  only  diverse  from  each  other,  but  directly 
opposed."     Bib.  Repos.,  Second  Series,  VIII,  195. 

8  "Transcendentalism  ...  is  the  recognition  in  man  of  the  capacity  of  know 
ing  truth  intuitively,  or  of  attaining  a  scientific  knowledge  of  an  order  of  existence 
transcending  the  reach  of  the  senses,  and  of  which  we  can  have  no  sensible  ex 
perience."    Dial,  II,  90.     Attributed  by  Cooke  to  J.  A.  Saxton. 

9  Literally,  a  passing  beyond  all  media  in  the  approach  to  the   Deity,  Tran 
scendentalism  contained  an   effort  to  establish,   mainly  by  a   discipline   of  the   in 
tuitive  faculty,  direct  intercourse  between  the  soul  and  God."     Charles  J.   Wood- 
"bury:    Talks  with  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  p.  no. 

10  Transcendentalism   was   not     .  .  .  speculative,  but   essentially  practical   and 
reformatory."     John  Orr :    "The  Transcendentalism  of   New  England."     Internat. 
R.,  XIII,  390. 

11  Transcendentalism  in  New  England,  pp.  136,  302,  and  355. 


10  EMERSON 

kind ;  to  test  ethics  by  conscience,  science  by  reason ;  to  try  the  creeds 
of  the  churches,  the  constitutions  of  the  states,  by  the  constitution  of  the 
universe."  12  It  was  because  they  felt  that  the  "intuitional  philosophy" 
gave  them  full  warrant  for  such  extravangant  claims  that  the  adherents 
of  Transcendentalism  so  eagerly  embraced  it.  As  a  challenge  it  was  re 
ceived  by  its  opponents ;  and  because  so  many  on  each  side  were  clergy 
men,  much  of  the  earlier  discussion  of  Transcendentalism  took  the  form 
of  religious  controversy.  Thus  to  Emerson's  Divinity  School  address 
Andrews  Norton  answered  with  his  "Latest  Form  of  Infidelity,"  and  to 
this  again  Ripley  replied.  The  Dial  set  forth  the  claims  of  Transcendent 
alism  as  an  outgrowth  of  Unitarianism  and  at  the  same  time  an  attack 
upon  its  fundamental  principles,13  while  the  Princeton  Review  and  the 
Christian  Examiner  alike  warned  their  readers  against  it.14  The  Uni 
tarians  opposed  the  new  movement  with  especial  persistence  because  here 
it  was  internal  dissension  and  civil  war. 

But  it  was  mere  blindness  in  the  Unitarians  not  to  see  that  Tran 
scendentalism  and  the  abolishment  of  creed  were  inherent  in  the  very 
creed  to  which  they  clung.  Unitarianism  was  essentially  an  assertion  of 
the  divinity  of  human  nature,  and  hence  of  the  ability  of  the  soul  to  rec 
ognize  religious  truths  independently  of  authority.  But  in  maintaining 
this  the  Unitarians  felt  themselves  to  be  true  adherents  of  the  church. 
They  felt  that  th£  Protestant  church  was  founded  on  the  right  of  pri 
vate  judgment  as  superior  to  ecclesiastical  tradition;  that  Christianity, 
Protestantism,  and  Unitarianism  were  successive  revolts  proceeding  from 
exactly  the  same  principle,  each  group  of  "come-outers"  having  the  same 
noble  heresy  that  had  been  the  corner-stone  of  the  church  from  which 

12  Lecture  on  Transcendentalism.     Works,  Centenary  Edition,  VI,  37. 

13  "This  movement  grew  out  of  the  Unitarian  movement.     It  did  not,   how 
ever,  grow  out  of  the  Unitarian  theology.  .  .  .  The  association  is,   philosophically 
speaking,  purely  accidental."    Dial,  I,  421.     Attributed  by  Cooke  to  W.  D.  Wilson. 
The  tone  of  the  article  is  openly  hostile  to  the  current  orthodox  Unitarianism. 

14  "We  feel  it  to  be  a  solemn  duty  to  warn  our  readers,  and  in  our  measure, 
the  public,  against  this  German  atheism,  which  the  spirit  of  darkness  is  employing 
ministers  of  the  gospel  to  smuggle  in  among  us  under  false  pretenses."     Princeton 
Review,  XII,  71.     By  Charles  Hodge,  the  "founder,  editor,  and  principal  contrib 
utor."     (See  Index  Volume.)     The  Princeton  Review  was  the  orthodox   Presby 
terian  organ. 

"We  have  no  taste  for  the  sublimated  atheism  of  Fichte,  or  the  downright 
pantheism  of  Schelling.  Yet  these  are  men  familiar  with  the  works  of  such 
authors,  and  loud  in  their  praise,  who  are  not  ashamed  to  charge  the  philosophy  of 
Locke  with  a  sensualizing  and  degrading  influence."  Christian  Examiner,  XXIII, 
181.  By  F[rancis]  BCowenl.  The  Christian  Examiner  was  the  Unitarian  organ, 
but  was  already  inclining  toward  the  more  liberal  wing. 


INTRODUCTION  11 

they  withdrew  before  it  developed  a  creed  and  an  authority  of  its  own. 
Channing,  who  led  the  revolt  from  Congregationalism,  saw  the  love  of 
creed  and  authority  at  work  again  and  said  sadly,  "We  have  a  Unitarian 
orthodoxy."  From  this  "orthodoxy"  Transcendentalism  was  the  next 
revolt;15  but  although  at  first  it  took  some  members  out  of  the  church, 
in  the  end  it  triumphed  within  the  church ;  and  the  Unitarians  today  are 
much  more  the  followers  of  Emerson  and  Parker  than  of  their  bitter  and 
forgotten  antagonists.  However  much  more  it  may  have  been,  Tran 
scendentalism  was  a  development  in  the  history  of  the  Unitarian  church.^ 

So  important  is  the  religious  aspect  of  Transcendentalism  that  one  is  • 
sometimes  tempted  to  regard  it  not  only  as  fundamental  but  as  all-in 
clusive.  It  should  be  remembered,  however,  that  no  history  of  American 
literature  or  of  American  social  progress  could  be  written  without  taking- 
account  of  the  Transcendental  movement.  But  it  is  beyond  the  purpose 
of  this  essay  to  consider  Transcendentalism  from  any  of  these  points  of 
view.  Our  purpose  is  merely  to  frame  a  working  definition  as  a  basis 
for  a  consideration  of  Emerson's  philosophy;  and  it  has  seemed  best  to 
bring  together  such  statements  as  have  hitherto  been  made,  so  far  as  they 
do  not  merely  repeat  one  another,  before  venturing  on  any  further  at 
tempt  at  a  definition.  In  the  various  quotations  thus  far  set  down,  Tran 
scendentalism  has  been  described  from  several  apparently  unrelated 
points  of  view.  It  is  to  be  noted,  however,  that  it  is  not  so  much  the  sum 
of  all  these  various  things  as  it  is  their  product.  It  is  one  thing,  and  not 
many  things.  What  gives  New  England  Transcendentalism  such  im 
portance  as  it  has  in  the  history  of  philosophy  is  simply  that  its  philos 
ophy  is  a  consistent  part  of  a  larger  whole. 

Turning  now  to  what  this  philosophy  actually  was,  we  find  again  a 
considerable  variety  of  opinion.  Some  will  have  it  that  there  was  no 
philosophic  content  at  all  to  New  England  Transcendentalism;  while 
some  express  the  fundamental  principles  with  the  greatest  vagueness 
and  indefiniteness,  and  others  with  absolute  precision.  What  were  the 
essential  ideas  upon  which  all  the  New  England  Transcendentalists  were 
agreed?  Wras  the  diversity  of  opinion  of  the  various  members  of  the 
so-called  "Transcendental  Club"  so  great  as  to  prevent  their  forming,  in 
a  modest  way,  a  school  of  philosophy?  And  is  there  anything  distinctive 
in  New  England  Transcendentalism  to  separate  it  from  the  greater  sys 
tems  upon  \vhich  it  was  founded? 

The  "fundamentals  of  Transcendentalism,"  says  Cabot,  "are  to  be 


15  Brownson,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  of  the  group,  felt  the  inevitable 
logic  of  this  sequence ;  and  thus,  after  he  became  a  Romanist,  he  devoted  a  special 
essay  to  the  thesis  that  "Protestantism  ends  in  Transcendentalism."  Essays,  p.  209. 


12  EMERSON 

felt  as  sentiments,  or  grasped  by  the  imagination  as  poetic  wholes,  rather 
than  set  down  in  propositions"  ;16  and  Frances  Tiffany,  in  one  of  the  best 
definitions  thus  far  formulated,  says,  "First  and  foremost,  it  can  only  be 
rightly  conceived  as  an  intellectual,  aesthetic,  and  spiritual  ferment,  not 
a  strictly  reasoned  doctrine.  It  was  "a  Renaissance  of  conscious,  living 
faith  in  the  power  of  reason,  in  the  reality  of  spiritual  insight,  in  the 
privilege,  beauty,  and  glory  of  life."  17  The  utmost  vagueness  as  to  the 
philosophic  content  of  Transcendentalism  is  to  be  found  in  the  always 
quoted  passages  from  Emerson's  lecture  on  "The  Transcendentalist,"  ]8 
and  here  and  there  in  his  Journals  ;19  while  Theodore  Parker,  on  the  other 
hand,  who  was  to  Emerson,  in  a  way,  what  Ben  Jonson  was  to  Shake 
speare,  defines  with  scholarly  exactitude  while  he  misses  the  poetic  large 
ness,  the  Gothic  suggestiveness  and  freedom.20  No  account  of  the  Tran 
scendental  philosophy  could  be  more  satisfactory  and  less  adequate  than 
Parker's.  It  leaves  nothing  distinctive,  nothing  original.  The  very 
harmlessness  and  sanity  of  his  statement  is  what  makes  it  false. 

Where  the  two  leading  exponents  of  the  school  take  such  divergent 
views,  it  seems  at  first  more  than  hazardous  to  attempt  to  say  what  posi 
tion  they  all  held  in  common,  or  even  to  assert  that  they  were  united  by 
more  than  a  personal  friendship  and  "a  common  impatience  of  routine 
thinking."  21  But  the  writings  of  the  various  members  of  the  group  re- 

10  A  Memoir  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  I,  248. 

17  "Transcendentalism :     The  New  England  Renaissance,"   Unitar.  R.,  XXXI, 
in. 

18  "Transcendentalism  is  ...  Idealism  as  it  appears  in   1842.  .  .  .  The  Tran- 
scendentalist   adopts    the    whole   connection    of    spiritual    doctrine.  ...  If   there    is 
anything  grand  or  daring  in  human  thought  or  virtue,  any  reliance  on  the  vast,  the 
unknown ;    any  presentiment,  any  extravagance  of  faith,  the  spiritualist  adopts  it  as 
most  in  nature.    The  oriental  mind  has  always  tended  to  this  largeness.     Buddhism 
is   an   expression  of  it.     The   Buddhist  ...  is  a   Transcendentalist.  .  .  .  Shall   we 
say  then  that  Transcendentalism  is  the  Saturnalia  or  excess  of  Faith ;    the  presenti 
ment  of  a  faith  proper  to  man  in  his  integrity,  excessive  only  when  his  imperfect 
obedience  hinders  the  satisfaction  of  his  wish?"     Works,  I,  317-320. 

19  In    the    lecture    quoted   above,    Emerson    refers    to    Kant's    "transcendental 
forms"  as  a  basis  for  New  England  Transcendentalism ;    but  in  his  Journal  he  is 
more  independent.     Let  one  not  consult  the  Germans,  he  says,  but  omit  in  his  own 
mind   what   is   added    from   tradition,   "and   the    rest    will   be   Transcendentalism " 
(Vol.  VI,  p.  380.) 

"That  there  is  in  the  intellect  (or  consciousness),  something  that  never 
was  in  the  senses,  to  wit,  the  intellect  (or  consciousness)  itself;  that  man  has 
faculties  which  transcend  the  senses ;  faculties  which  give  him  ideas  and  intuitions 
that  transcend  sensational  experiences;  ideas  whose  origin  is  not  from  sense,  nor 
their  proof  from  sense."  Op.  cit.,  p.  23. 

21  Cabot,  I,  249.  "We  called  ourselves  the  club  of  the  like-minded,  I  suppose 
because  no  two  of  us  thought  alike,"  said  James  Freeman  Clarke. 


INTRODUCTION  13 

veal  distinctly  more  than  this.    Let  me  attempt  a  brief  statement  of  what 
they  held  in  common. 

As  a  group,  or  "school,"  the  New  England  Transcendentalists 
thought,  at  least  at  the  start,  that  they  were  followers  of  Kant 
in  accepting  a  distinction  between  the  reason  and  the  understand 
ing,  and  in  attributing  to  the  former  the  power  of  knowing  truth  di 
rectly.22  Later,  as  they  acquired  some  familiarity  with  other  idealistic  ! 
philosophies,  they  diverged  somewhat  in  their  thinking ;  but  they  all 
remained  consistent  in  their  belief  that  the  world  of  spirit  (or  of  some 
super-spiritual  substance)  was  the  groundwork  of  being  and  the  material 
universe  an  appearance  or  effect ;  and  that  as  the  soul  partook  of  the 
nature  of  God  it  had,  through  its  highest  quality  as  "reason,"  direct  per 
ception  of  reality.  Beyond  this,  some  members  of  the  group  did  not  care 
to  venture. 

So  much  of  theory  held  in  common  would  not  entitle  the  New 
England  Transcendentalists  to  any  separate  consideration  in  the  history 
of  philosophy.  But  these  men  were  not  content  to  let  their  newly  ac 
quired  idealism  remain  sterile.  As  they  had  come  to  accept  it  because  of 
its  imaginative  and  emotional  appeal,  so  they  applied  it  with  enthusiasm 
and  vigor  to  the  problems  of  actual  life ;  and  in  doing  this  they  felt  that 
they  were  making  a  distinct  forward  step.  Their  attitude  is  well  ex 
pressed  in  an  anonymous  contemporary  dialogue.  Mr.  A,  in  endeavor 
ing  to  explain  his  beliefs  to  Mr.  B,  remarks,  "The  Transcendentalists  of 
our  country  .  .  .  have  made  great  advances  upon  the  Kantean  philos 
ophy;  we  have  .  .  .  made  it  bear  more  directly  upon  the  duties  and 
relations  of  life."  23  It  was  their  emphasis  upon  this  practical  applica 
tion  of  their  philosophy  that  has  led  so  many  of  their  critics  to  lose  sight 
of  their  philosophy  altogether.24 

But  it  was  not  that  the  New   England  Transcendentalists  applied  ^ 
their  idealism  in  religion  and  conduct;    it  is  rather  that  they  took  as  a 

22  As  early  as  1839  this  mistake  was  pointed  out  by  one  of  the  most  vigorous 
critics  of  the  time,  the  Rev.  James  Waddel  Alexander,  who  remarked  that  Kant 
"simply  meant  to  attribute  to  pure  reason  the  power  of  directing  the  cognitive  en 
ergy  beyond  its  nearer  objects,  and  to  extend  its  research  indefinitely;    but  by  no 
means  to  challenge  for  this  power  the  direct  intuition  of  the  absolute,  as  the  ver 
itable  object  of  infallible  insight,"  as  is  done  "by  some  of  our  American  imitators." 
Princ.  R.,  XI,  49. 

23  Xeiv  Englandcr,  I,  503. 

24  "It  was  a  temper  rather  than  a  theory,  an  aspiration  rather  than  a  phil-| 
osophy."     W.  M.  Payne,  Leading  American  Essayists,  p.  187.     This  is  the  general, 
somewhat  patronizing  attitude  which  the  average  writer  on  the  subject  is  wont  to 
take. 


14  EMERSON 

test  of  idealism  its  practicability,  that  makes  their  distinctive  contribution 
to  philosophy.  They  asked  of  Transcendentalism  not  so  much  the  age- 
old  query,  "Does  it  explain  ?"  as  the  great  modern  question,  "Does  it 
work?"  Philosophy  that  did  not  prove  itself  by  this  test  had  no  war 
rant  with  them.  The  Transcendentalism  of  these  men  was  a  Pragmatic 
Mysticism.  This  of  course  did  not  imply  that  their  system  should  be 
built  up  from  such  merely  apparent  things  as  facts.  The  data  of  ex 
perience  had  already  been  discredited  as  the  stuff  out  of  which  the  sen 
sationalism  of  Locke  was  constructed.25  No;  that  idealism  was  en 
nobling  was  its  sufficient  proof ;  that  sensationalism  was  degrading  in  its 
influence  was  a  complete  refutation  of  John  Locke. 

For  this  emphasis  on  the  practical  and  the  moral,  New  England 
Transcendentalism  was  of  course  indebted  to  a  Puritan  inheritance.26 
In  this,  as  in  many  other  things,  it  was  emphatically  an  American 
product,  and  could  not  have  found  its  complete  expression  in  any  other 
land.  Hecker,  who  was  closely  associated  with  the  group  at  Brook  Farm 
before  he  became  a  Romanist,  contends  very  ably  that  Transcendental 
ism  was  merely  an  outgrowth  of  American  Democracy;27  and  though  he 
seems  to  forget  that  our  democratic  government  and  institutions  were 
the  result  of  religious  freedom  and  not  its  cause,  yet  it  is  unquestion 
ably  true  that  without  the  aid  of  our  political  freedom  this  extreme  ex 
pression  of  religious  liberty  could  never  have  taken  place.  This  local 
and  particular  character  of  Transcendentalism  was  realized  at  the  time. 
Dickens,  in  his  American  Notes,  says,  "If  I  were  a  Bostonian,  I  think  I 
would  be  a  Transcendentalist."  Ordinarily  one's  philosophy  does  not 
depend  upon  his  habitat. 

These,  then,  are  the  elements  of  which  New  England  Transcendent 
alism  was  composed;  and  no  definition  would  be  complete  that  did  not 
take  account  of  all  of  them.  Such  a  definition  would  be  cumbersome  and 
ungainly.  Let  us  say,  then,  simply,  that  New  England  Transcendental 
ism  was  produced  by  the  deliberate  importing  of  certain  imperfectly  un 
derstood  elements  of  German  idealism  into  American  Unitarianism ;  that 
it  became  a  creative  force  in  American  life  and  letters ;  but  that  as  a 
philosophy  it  was  merely  a  sort  of  mystical  idealism  built  on  pragmatic 

25  When   Hedge  was   told   that  the   facts   were  against  him,  he   replied,   "So 
much  the  worse  for  the  facts."     Bartol :     Radical  Problems,  p.  70. 

26  Transcendentalism,   as    embodied   in   its   leaders,   Alcott,    Emerson,    Parker, 
and  Margaret  Fuller,  was — whatever  else  as  well — "a  blending  of  Platonic  meta 
physics  and  the   Puritan  spirit,  of  a  philosophy  and  a  character  .  .  .  taking  place 
at  a  definite  time,  in  a  specially  fertilized  soil,  under  particular  conditions."     H.  C. 
Goddard :     Studies  in  New  England  Transcendentalism,  pp.   189  and  196. 

27  Catholic  World,  XXIII,  534. 


INTRODUCTION  15 

premises.  This  skeleton  of  a  definition,  if  read  in  connection  with  the 
twenty  representative  comments  I  have  quoted,  will  at  least  serve  as  a 
basis  on  which  we  may  consider  the  philosophy  of  Emerson. 

To  attempt  a  statement  of  what  Emerson's  philosophy  really  was  is 
a  task  as  difficult  as  it  is  thankless.  We  have  long  been  accustomed  not 
only  to  rejecting  him  wholly  as  a  philosopher,  but  also  to  placing  upon 
him  certain  other  values  with  which  the  establishment  of  a  philosophical 
claim  would  interfere.  The  estimate  which  I  have  been  forced  to  take 
of  Emerson's  contribution  to  philosophy  far  exceeds  that  which  is  usually 
put  upon  it ;  and  though  this  may  easily  be  due  to  the  importance  which 
a  subject  is  wont  to  take  upon  near  examination,  yet  I  find  that  opinion 
in  the  scholarly  world  has  grown  rapidly  of  late  years  in  this  same  di 
rection.  It  is  time  that  the  main  tenets  of  New  England  Transcendent 
alism  received  a  definite  philosophical  statement ;  and  these,  without 
question,  may  best  be  noted  in  the  central  figure  of  the  group.  For 
whatever  the  value  of  Emerson's  thought  may  have  been,  it  is  almost 
beyond  dispute  that  there  is  no  independent  value  in  the  philosophical 
aspirations  of  his  associates. 

Emerson  bears  much  the  same  relation  to  the  Transcendentalists  of 
Xew  England  as  Socrates  bore  to  the  Sophists  of  Athens :  he  was  dis 
tinctly  one  of  them,  yet  distinctly  apart  from  the  rest.  Like  Socrates,  he 
had  no  system  of  philosophy  to  support;  and  like  him,  again,  the  results 
of  his  teaching  were  not  theories  but  men.  Or,  to  bring  the  comparison 
nearer,  Emerson  stands  in  much  the  same  relation  to  the  philosophy  and 
religion  of  the  nineteenth  century  as  Jonathan  Edwards,  born  just  one 
hundred  years  before  him,  stands  to  the  philosophy  and  religion  of  the/ 
eighteenth.  These  two  men  represent  the  extreme  expression  of  their 
respective  times.  Each  was  a  pure  idealist,  though  neither  was  original 
in  his  system-making;  both  were  men  of  high  character  and  of  great 
moral  earnestness.  Their  vast  difference  of  attitude  is  the  concrete  ex 
pression  of  the  difference  between  Puritanism  and  Unitarianism. 

The  period  of  Transcendentalism  in  Xew  England  may  be  said  to 
begin  with  die  publication  of  Emerson's  Nature  in  1836.  It  is  true  that 
the  "stir"  was  felt  much  earlier.  Unitarianism  entered  into  a  new  period 
of  life  and  activity  about  1815,  with  Channing  and  Walker  as  its  leaders ; 
and  so  clearly  did  these  men  foreshadow  the  later  developments  that 
they  have  sometimes,  but  without  sufficient  warrant,  been  counted  as 
Transcendentalists.  The  first  importation  of  the  essential  German  con 
tribution  came  with  the  return  from  Gottingen  of  Bancroft,  Everett,  and 
Ticknor ;  and  one  critic  accordingly  begins  the  period  of  Transcendent- 


16  EMERSON 

alism  "about  1820."  28  But  the  first  genuine  interest  in  German  philos 
ophy  did  not  come  with  these  men,  but  through  English  and  French 
sources — through  Coleridge  and  Cousin — and  was  not  felt  in  New 
England  till  after  1830.  The  direct  and  purposeful  engrafting  of  Ger 
man  idealism  upon  American  Unitarianism,  by  which  New  England 
Transcendentalism  was  really  created,  that  is,  the  formation  of  the 
"Transcendental  Club,"  took  place  in  the  very  year  that  Emerson's 
Nature  gave  to  it  its  first  real  utterance.  And  it  was  in  this  same  year 
that  the  American  edition  of  Carlyle's  Sartor  Resartus  brought  to  a  head 
the  growing  spirit  of  unrest.29  With  Emerson's  Nature  Transcendent 
alism  found  its  first  adequate  expression  not  only  in  philosophy  but  in 
literature  ;30  and  it  is  accordingly  from  1836  that  Higginson  and  others 
have  dated  the  beginning  of  a  genuine  and  distinctive  American  litera 
ture. 

It  is  less  easy  to  fix  upon  a  date,  like  "the  closing  of  the  theatres  in 
1642,"  which  will  conveniently  mark  the  end  of  the  period.  We  might 
well  choose  the  publication  of  Emerson's  Second  Series  of  Essays  and  of 
the  last  number  of  The  Dial  in  i844,31  though  Judd's  Margaret,  the  one 
distinctive  piece  of  Transcendental  fiction,  was  not  published  till  the  fol 
lowing  year,  and  the  experiment  at  Brook  Farm  lasted  two  years  longer. 
Or  we  might,  with  more  liberality,  bring  down  the  period  of  Tran 
scendentalism  to  the  death  of  Thoreau  in  1862,  by  which  time  Parker  and 
Margaret  Fuller  had  also  died,  and  Emerson's  Conduct  of  Life  had  vir 
tually  completed  his  contribution.  Even  this  would  not  include  the  work 
of  such  younger  but  thorough-going  Transcendentalists  as  Higginson  and 
Sanborn ;  while  the  publication  of  the  first  book  of  the  originator  of  the 
"Transcendental  Club"  did  not  occur  till  i865.32  Goblet  d'Alviella,  em- 


28  F.  C.  Lockwood:    Emerson  as  a  Philosopher,  p.  3. 

29  "This  was  the  signal  for  a  sudden  mental  and  moral  mutiny,"  says  Lowell, 
in  his  essay  on  Thoreau ;    and  John  Orr  dates  the  Transcendental  movement  not 
from  Emerson's  book  but  from  Carlyle's  in  the  same  year. 

30  The  first  important  books  of  Alcott  and  of  Ripley  appeared  also  in   1836, 
and  no  other  member  of  the  group  had  published  anything  of  consequence  before 
this. 

31  The  Dial  contained  representative  work  from  all  the  leading  members   of 
the    group:     Emerson,    Margaret    Fuller,    Ellery    Channing    (the    poet),    Thoreau, 
Parker,  and  Cranch  were  fully  and  adequately  represented ;   while  less  frequent  con 
tributions   were   received   from   Alcott,   James   Freeman   Clarke,   W.   H.    Channing, 
Dwight,  Ripley,  Hedge,  and  Jones  Very.   Many  of  the  less  famous  members  are  also 
included.     Between  1836  and  1844  books  were  published  by  Emerson,  Alcott,  Par 
ker,   Margaret  Fuller,   Ripley,   Clarke,   Cranch,  Ellery   Channing,  and  Jones   Very. 
Thoreau's  first  book  was  not  published  till  1849. 

32  Hedge's  Reason  in  Religion. 


INTRODUCTION  17 

phasizing  the  practical  and  reformatory  aspect  of  Transcendentalism,  ex 
tends  the  period  to  include  the  Civil  War.33  It  seems  to  me,  however, 
that  the  publication  of  Emerson's  Poems,  and  the  breaking  up  of  the 
Brook  Farm  experiment,  in  1847,  should  be  taken  as  more  appropriately 
marking  the  close  of  the  period  than  any  of  these  later  events,  coming, 
as  they  did,  when  Transcendentalism  had  already  become  a  declining 
rather  than  a  growing  force.  Nothing  essentially  characteristic  was 
added  after  Emerson's  philosophy  appeared  again  in  the  form  of  poetry ; 
and  the  failure  of  Brook  Farm  marks  the  close  of  the  second  of  the  two 
notable  undertakings  which  originated  in  the  ''Transcendental  Club." 
The  Dial,  as  I  have  said,  was  already  suspended.  I  venture,  therefore, 
to  name  the  years  i8^6_to  1847  as  those  we  should  accept  in  marking  out 
the  period  of  New  England  Transcendentalism. 

The  development  of  American  Unitarianism  to  the  point  where  it 
could  furnish  a  proper  soil  for  Transcendentalism  is  best  told  in  con 
nection  with  the  life  and  influence  of  William  Ellery  Channing;  the  in 
troduction  or  rather  domesticating  of  German  philosophy,  which  brought 
New  England  Transcendentalism  itself  into  being,  was  the  work,  mainly, 
of  Frederick  Henry  Hedge. 


33  Contemporary  Evolution  of  Religious  Thought,  pp.  176! 


18  EMERSON 


CHAPTER  I. 

BEGINNINGS  OF  NEW  ENGLAND  TRANSCENDENTALISM  :    CHANNING  AND 

THE  UNITARIAN  MOVEMENT;    HEDGE  AND  THE 

"TRANSCENDENTAL  CLUB." 

William  Ellery  Channing  was  born  in  the  year  1780.  It  is  not  a 
little  remarkable  that  the  decade  of  his  birth  should  have  been  that 
which  not  only  witnessed  the  birth  of  Unitarianism  in  this  country,  but 
which  marked  the  beginning  of  those  three  great  movements  in  Germany, 
England,  and  France  which  were  the  determining  factors  of  the  Tran 
scendental  movement  of  New  England.  I  mean,  of  course,  the  remark 
able  development  of  German  idealism  dating  from  the  publication  of 
Kant's  Critique  in  1781  ;  the  rise  of  English  Romanticism  heralded  by 
the  appearance  of  the  songs  of  Burns  in  1786;  and  the  political  and 
social  revolutions  which  began  in  France  with  the  fall  of  the  Bastille  in 
1789.  It  was  Channing's  mission,  more  than  that  of  any  other  man,  to 
prepare  the  New  England  of  Jonathan  Edwards  to  become  the  New 
England  of  Emerson. 

Channing  is  the  connecting  link  between  these  two  men  and  their 
strangely  dissimilar  periods.  It  was  only  because  he  was  firmly  grounded 
in  the  old  theology  that  he  was  able  to  lead  almost  the  entire  thinking 
population  of  Boston  to  a  readiness  to  accept  the  new.  He  was  ordained 
in  Boston  in  1803,  the  year  of  the  birth  of  Emerson  and  of  the  death  of 
Samuel  Hopkins,  who  was  the  greatest  of  Edwards'  disciples  and  the 
man  who  was  both  Channing's  teacher  and  the  immediate  cause  of  his 
revolt  from  the  Edwardian  theology.  From  this  date  until  the  decided 
appearance  of  Emerson  and  Parker,  Channing  was  the  dominant  in 
fluence  in  American  religious  history. 

The  story  of  his  enlightenment  is  well  known.  While  reading 
Hutcheson  he  came  upon  the  sudden  realization  that  if  man  is  truly  the 
child  of  God  he  must  be  free  as  God  is  free.34  Old  as  the  thought  was, 
it  marked  an  epoch  in  our  religious  history.  From  this  "discovery" 


34  If  he  deduced  this  from  reading  Hutcheson  it  must  have  been  by  his  con 
troversial  instinct,  for  Hutcheson  was  a  determinist.  But  this  author's  teaching  of 
man's  capacity  for  disinterested  affection  was  quite  in  line  with  the  thought  of 
Hopkins,  and  consequently  with  Channing's  habit  of  mind.  This  was  probably  the 
starting-point  of  his  later  thinking. 


CHANNING  AND  THE  UNITARIAN   MOVEMENT  19 

until  he  spoke  his  dying  words,  "I  have  received  many  messages  from 
the  Spirit,"  Charming  stood  for  the  freedom  of  the  individual  to  think 
for  himself  in  matters  of  religion. 

But  so  long  as  the  assertion  of  the  right  of  imliviiiua!  judgment 
meant  no  more  than  the  ability  of  the  soul  to  receive  "these  supernatural 
sojicitings,"  it  differed  little  from  the  faith  of  many  religious  persons  of 
the  past;  for  the  experience  which  they  interpreted  as  illumination  has 
come  to  almost  all  sensitively  constructed  religious  persons.  The  doc 
trine  of  the  "inner  light"  as  taught  by  George  Fox  and  the  Quakers  of 
this  country,  was  an  especially  obnoxious  heresy  to  the  Puritans  because 
it  differed  so  little  from  their  own  belief.  But  Channinp^sjgvgjnf  free 
dom  was  closely  bound  up  with  fljfi  pvnlntinflg  nf  Franre  and  from  this 
it_  received  a.  certain  frreadlb~and-~aaQtive.  ^w^t  -which. ..enabled  Joint.,  to 
take  a  much  firmer  hold  upon  the  children  of  the  men  who  had  engaged 
in  the  Boston  Tea  Party.35  As  late  as  1830  he  was  carried  away  with 
enthusiasm  over  the  three  days'  revolution  of  July,  and  proportionately 
indignant  at  the  general  indifference  in  Boston.  "I  was  a  young  man  in 
college  in  the  days  of  the  first  French  Republic,"  he  said,  "and  at  every 
crisis  in  its  history  our  dignity  was  wholly  upset.  We  were  rushing  to 
meetings  of  sympathy  or  kindling  bonfires  of  congratulation  and  walking 
in  torchlight  processions."  On  being  called  a  young  man  for  still  show 
ing  this  spirit,  "he  answered  in  a  loud,  ringing  tone  that  was  almost  an 
hurrah,  'Always  young  for  liberty !' ' 

But  the  influence  of  Channing  was  the  most  important  factor  in 
bringing  about  the  change  of  attitude  which  resulted  in  Transcendental 
ism,  not  only  because  of  his  insistence  upon  the  right  of  private  judg 
ment  in  matters  of  religion,  nor  even  because  he  enforced  this  in  the 
spirit  of  a  staunch  advocate  of  freedom;  but  because  his  strong  literary 
sense  and  commanding  eloquence  supplied  the  motive  power  that  was 
needed.  No  appeal  was  possible  to  the  Boston  to  which  Channing  came 
but  that  which  was  made  in  the  form  of  art.  Channing  appealed  to  that 
literary  sense  of  largeness,  of  elevation,  of  profound  suggestion  which 

35  'This  emphasis  on  the  soul  and  its  rights,"  says  Mr.  Daniel  Dulany  Ad- 
dison,  speaking  of  Channing's  belief  in  the  worth  of  the  individual  man,  "was  in 
direct  contrast  to  previous   New  England  theological  thinking  and  caused  the  re 
pudiation  of  the  teaching  of  Edwards  and  Hopkins.     Channing  was   more  under 
the  influence  of  the  writers  of  the  French  Revolution  than  the  Puritan  Fathers." 
(The  Clergy  in  American  Life  and  Letters,  p.  200.) 

36  William  W.   Fenn,   in  Pioneers   of  Religious  Liberty  in  America,  p.   187. 
Given  also,  with  slight  variations,  in  the  Life  of  William  Ellery  Channing  by  his 
nephew,  W.  H.   Channing,  p.  601,   Hedge's  Martin  Luther  and  Other  Essays,  p. 
170,  and  elsewhere. 


20  EMERSON 

England  had  been  developing  during  her  whole  romantic  movement. 
"Channing  rose  out  of  the  reign  of  opinions  into  that  of  ideas,"  says 
James  Freeman  Clarke.37  Without  being  able  to  think  profoundly  for 
himself,  he  was  fascinated,  and  in  turn  fascinated  his  hearers,  with  a 
certain  breadth  and  elevation  of  thought.  His  purely  literary  articles, 
published  between  1825  and  1830,  are  of  importance  because  of  the  great 
impression  which  they  produced.38  But  in  his  familiarity  with  Words 
worth  and  Coleridge,  and  in  his  love  for  them  and  more  critical  estimate 
of  their  associates,  Channing  had  at  least  an  appreciation  of  English 
Romanticism  which  was  keen,  and  an  expression  of  it  in  his  own  work 
which  was  adequate. 

If  our  estimate  of  the  causes  which  produced  Transcendentalism  has 
been  corect,  and  if  Channing  brought  to  American  Unitarianism  an  ap 
preciation  of  the  French  and  English  elements  to  the  extent  we  have 
seen,  then  nothing  remained  but  an  acceptance  of  German  Idealism  to 
make  him  the  first  of  the  Transcendentalists.  That  he  had  some  knowl 
edge  of  German  philosophy,  even  a  large  amount  of  sympathy  with  it, 
must  be  granted.  "It  was  with  intense  delight,"  says  his  nephew,  "that 
he  made  acquaintance  with  the  master  minds  of  Germany,  through  the 
medium,  first  of  Madame  de  Stae'l,  and  afterwards  of  Coleridge."  After 
speaking  of  his  enthusiasm  for  Kant,  Schelling,  and  Fichte,  the  biog 
rapher  adds :  "Without  adopting  the  systems  of  either  of  these  philos 
ophers,  and,  fortunately  perhaps  for  him,  without  being  fully  acquainted 
with  these  systems,  he  yet  received  from  their  examples  the  most  ani 
mating  incentives  to  follow  out  the  paths  of  speculation  into  which  his 
own  mind  had  entered."  39 

Yet  Channing  was  far  from  being  a  philosopher,  and  it  was  because 
of  this  lack  that  his  religious  inconsistencies  gave  way  before  the  keen 
logic  of  Theodore  Parker,  and  led  to  the  ultimate  triumph  of  Tran 
scendentalism  over  the  earlier  Unitarianism.40  Channing  had  spoken 

37  Memorial  and  Biographical  Sketches,  p.  158. 

38  Mr.  John  White  Chadwick  apologizes  for  the  taste  of  Channing's  contem 
poraries  by  calling  attention  to  the  state  of  American  literature  at  this  time.     "But 
when  Channing's  articles  appeared  there  was  no  such  'mob  of  gentlemen  who  write 
with  ease'  and  write  extremely  well  as  we  have  now.     Judged  by  purely  literary 
standards,  hundreds  of  these  write  better  than  Channing.    But  'in  the  country  of  the 
blind,  the  one-eyed  man  is  king,'  and  it  is  not  strange  that  under  the  general  con 
ditions  that  prevailed  from   1825  to   1830   Channing's   literary  product  earned   for 
him  the  enthusiastic  admiration  of  his  co-religionists  and  of  many  who  were  not 
joined  to  their  assembly."      (William  Ellery   Channing:    Minister  of  Religion,  p. 
196.) 

39  Life  of  William  Ellery  Channing,  by  his  nephew,  W.  H.  Channing,  p.  175. 

40  "He  admitted  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,"  says  Renan,  "but  not  his  divinity ; 


BEGINNINGS  OF   NEW   ENGLAND  TRANSCENDENTALISM  21 

for  the  right  of  private  judgment  in  religion,  with  the  deep  conviction  of 
a  great  advocate  of  freedom,  and  with  the  lofty  tone  of  a  poet;  and  in 
making  the  receptivity  of  the  soul  a  universal  attribute,  though  he  had 
not  himself  enlarged  it  to  a  philosophy,  he  had  at  least  created  the  need 
of  a  philosophical  warrant  for  this  old  doctrine. 

This  need  was  deeply  felt  and  to  some  extent  supplied  by  James 
Walker^  ( 1794-1874) .  The  claims  of  this  vigorous  old  theologian  to 
some  consideration  in  any  treatment  of  the  beginnings  of  Transcendent 
alism  in  New  England  are  so  great  that  we  may  well  consider  whether  in 
bringing  a  greater  philosophical  interest  and  knowledge  to  bear  on  the 
Unitarian  position  he  was  not  indeed  the  first  of  the  Transcendentalists. 

Walker  was  next  to  Channing  the  most  important  champion  of  the 
"Liberal"  movement  of  1815.  Like  Channing  he  was  impulsive  and  en 
thusiastic  in  his  youth,  though  there  is  little  in  the  published  sermons  of 
either  one  to  suggest  that  this  could  ever  have  been  the  case.  As  Pro 
fessor  of  Moral  Philosophy  at  Harvard,  of  which  he  was  afterwards 
President,  and  as  editor  of  the  Christian  Examiner,  he  had  much  to  do 
with  moulding  the  spirit  of  the  age. 

Although  Walker  was  a  devout  Christian,  believing  in  the  estab 
lished  means  of  grace  and  approving  of  philosophy  only  as  serving  the 
ends  of  religion,  yet  he  had  a  strong  grasp  on  the  problems  of  philosophy 
and  a  deep  interest  in  them ;  so  that  he  is  often  spoken  of  by  his  younger 
contemporaries  as  a  metaphysician.  But  as  Frothingham  well  points  out, 
his  mind  seems  to  have  been  of  an  emphatically  English  cast,  rather  than 
German  or  French.  And  so,  though  he  studied  conscientiously  the  Ger 
man  philosophers  from  Kant  to  Hegel,  as  well  as  Cousin  and  Jouffroy, 
he  did  not  fully  enter  into  their  spirit,  nor  find  in  them  the  spiritual  ele 
ment  he  wanted.  His  apparent  reason,  from  his  own  English  point  of 
view,  is  expressed  pithily  in  his  remark,  "Good  sense  must  be ;  other 
things  may  be,  good  sense  must  be ;" — a  remark  which  must  be  read  in 
the  light  of  his  later  comment,  "Men  may  put  down  Transcendentalism 
if  they  can,  but  they  must  first  deign  to  comprehend  its  principles." 

Frothingham  speaks  of.  Walker  as  taking  the  Transcendental  posi-. 
tion  out  and  out  in  i834,41  two  years  before  the  date  we  have  assigned 
to  its  first  expression,  and  as  evidence  quotes  from  his  once  famous  ser- 


he  admitted  the  Bible  but  not  hell."  Channing  tried  to  hold  to  both  the  divinity 
and  humanity  of  Jesus;  but  why  not,  as  Renan  says,  "frankly  call  him  divine?  It 
requires  no  more  effort  to  believe  one  than  the  other."  (Etudes  d'Histoire  Re- 
ligieuse,  p.  378.)  It  was  this  central  inconsistency  that  Parker  perceived  and  con 
demned. 

41  Transcendentalism  in  New  England,  p.  120. 


22  EMERSON 

mon  on  "The  Philosophy  of  Man's  Spiritual  Nature  in  regard  to  the 
Foundations  of  Faith."  42  But  in  this  sermon  Walker  was  only  endeavor 
ing  to  establish  "the  existence  and  reality  of  the  spiritual  world"  (his 
whole  sentence  is  in  italics),  from  "the  acknowledged  existence  and  real 
ity  of  spiritual  impressions  or  perceptions" ;  and  in  order  to  state  his 
point  "in  the  simplest  and  clearest  language  of  which  the  subject  is 
susceptible,"  he  explains, — "just  as,  from  the  acknowledged  existence 
and  reality  of  sensible  impressions  or  perceptions,  we  may  and  do  assume 
the  existence  and  realities  of  the  sensible  world."  43  This  is  quite  the 
opposite  of  Transcendentalism.  It  is  true  that  in  this  same  sermon  he 
expresses  the  hope  for  "a  better  philosophy  than  the  degrading  sen 
sualism,  out  of  which  most  forms  of  modern  infidelity  have  grown 
...  a  philosophy  which  recognizes  the  higher  nature  of  man  .  .  . 
which  comprehends  the  soul  .  .  .  which  continually  reminds  us  of  our 
intimate  relationship  to  the  spiritual  world."  44  But  though  this  was  most 
valuable  in  determining  the  tendencies  of  the  time,  it  is  not  the  realiza 
tion  or  presentation  of  Transcendentalism  itself.  Frothingham  comes 
nearer  to  a  just  statement  of  Walker's  position  when  he  says,  writing  at 
a  later  time,  that  he  transferred  "the  sanctions  of  authority  from  out 
ward  to  inward,  from  external  testimony  to  immediate  consciousness, 
from  the  senses  to  the  soul,  as  the  deepest  thinkers  in  all  ages  have  done. 
.  .  .  He  attributed  to  the  soul  a  receptive  but  not  a  creative  power."45 

German  philosophy  had  been  introduced  into  France  by  the 
Allemagne  of  Madame  de  Stae'l,  and  though  this  book  had  been  some 
what  noticed  and  read  both  in  this  country  and  England,  it  received 
small  notice  in  France  till  Cousin  began  to  incorporate  parts  of  it  in  his 
philosophy.  Cousin's  influence  in  America  began  when  his  Introduction 
to  History  of  Philosophy  was  translated  by  H.  G.  Linberg  and  published 
in  Boston  in  1832,  and  more  especially  when,  two  years  later,  his  History 
of  Philosophy  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  containing  his  vigorous  criti 
cism  of  Locke,  was  translated  and  published  with  an  elaborate  introduc 
tion  by  Caleb  Sprague  Henry,  under  the  title  Elements  of  Psychology.4* 

42  This  sermon,  printed  in  the  Christian  Examiner  and  republished  as  a  tract, 
may  be  found  in  Walker's  volume  of  sermons  entitled  Reason,  Faith  and  Duty. 

43  Reason,  Faith  and  Duty,  p.  39. 

44  Ibid.,  pp.  60,  61. 

48  Atlantic  Monthly,  LIT,  18. 

40  "Linberg's  translation  of  Cousin's  Introduction  to  History  of  Philosophy 
may  be  considered  as  the  great  store-house,  from  which  most  of  them — e.  g., 
Brownson,  Emerson,  Parker,  &c.—  have  derived  their  peculiar  philosophical  opin 
ions,  their  modes  of  reasoning,  and  their  forms  of  thought  and  expression."" 
American  Church  R.,  XIX,  411. 


HEDGE  AND  THE  "TRANSCENDENTAL  CLUB"  23 

But  notable  as  was  the  influence  of  Cousin,  that  of  Coleridge  was 
certainly  greater.  In  1829  the  Aids  to  Reflection  was  published  with  an 
introduction  by  James  Marsh,  who  proposed  Kant,  Jacobi,  the  English 
Platonists,  and  Coleridge  as  a  substitute  for  the  current  philosophy.  In 
1833  Frederick  Henry  Hedge  wrote  a  review  of  this  book,47  and  at  once 
brought  the  contribution  of  Coleridge  to  a  focus.  This  review  was  called 
by  him  later  "the  first  word,  as  far  as  I  know,  which  any  American  had 
uttered  in  respectful  recognition  of  the  claims  of  Transcendentalism."  48 
It  is  Hedge's  Unitarian  point  of  view  that  gives  this  review  its  signif 
icance  for  our  study.  Of  Coleridge  he  writes :  "He  appears  as  a  zealous 
Trinitarian  and  a  warm  defender  of  the  doctrines  of  the  English  church. 
We  have  no  doubt  of  his  sincerity;  but  unless  we  err  greatly  he  has 
either  misunderstood  his  own  views,  or  grossly  misrepresented  the  doc 
trines  of  his  church."  49 

But  the  personal  influence  of  Hedge  himself  had,  I  believe,  more  to 
do  with  popularizing  German  philosophy  in  the  transcendental  group 
than  had  either  the  vague  Coleridge  or  the  glittering  Cousin.  Hedge  had 
received  his  training  in  the  German  schools,  and  to  a  considerable  extent 
he  knew  the  mighty  Germans  in  their  own  language.  As  minister  at 
West  Cambridge  from  1829  till  1835,  he  came  in  contact  with  all  the 
members  of  the  group;  and  during  these  formative  years  he  seems  to 
have  made  them  familiar  with  the  main  conceptions  of  Kant,  Fichte, 
and  Schelling.  Of  Hegel,  neither  Hedge  nor  his  friends  knew  very  much, 
at  this  time  or  later.  The  influence  of  the  German  ideas,  which  Hedge 
was  able  to  state  with  comparative  correctness,  in  the  daily  conversation 
of  intelligent  and  thoughtful  men  and  women,  is  hard  to  estimate,  and 
has  been  largely  neglected  because,  of  course,  it  was  left  unrecorded.  In 
1834  Emerson  wrote  in  his  Journal,  ''Hedge  read  me  good  things  out  of 
Schleiermacher ;"  50  and  a  little  later,  "Coleridge  loses  .  .  .  by  his  own 
concealing,  uncandid  acknowledgement  of  debt  to  Schelling,"  51  which 
indicates  that  he  now  knew  more  of  Schelling  than  Coleridge  had  to  teach 
him.  Yet  Cabot,  who  knew  whereof  he  spoke,  says,  with  reference 

47  Together   with    The  Friend,  republished  at   Burlington.   Vermont,   in    1831. 
Christian  Examiner,  XIV,  108. 

48  Quoted  by  Mrs.  Dall  in  her  Transcendentalism  in  New  England,  p.  15.     In 
this  review  Hedge  praises  the  work  of  Marsh;    then,  after  commenting  on  Kant 
and   Fichte,   he  considers   Schelling  as   "the  most  satisfactory."     Coleridge   he   re 
gards  as  a  profound  thinker,  though  not  a  successful  poet. 

49  Christian   Examiner,   XIV,    127.     To   Emerson,   Coleridge's   churchmanship 
was  merely  "a  harmless  freak."    Journals,  IV,  152. 

50  Journals,  III,  393. 
61  Journals,  III,  503. 


24  EMERSON 

especially  to  Fichte  and  Schelling,  "I  had  reason  to  believe  that  he  had 
no  first-hand  acquaintance  with  the  books." 

Hedge's  own  knowledge  of  German  philosophy  was  by  no  means 
systematic  or  profound,  and  his  influence  would  not  have  been  so  great 
if  it  had  been.  "This  atmosphere,  rather  than  any  form  and  understand 
ing  merely,  of  German  thought,"  says  the  editor  of  the  Unitarian  Review, 
"rather  than  any  formal  teaching  of  philosophy, — which  he  disbelieved 
in  and  kept  aloof  from, — made  his  characteristic  service  to  our  so-called 
'Transcendental'  movement." 52  For  Cabot's  invaluable  Memoir  of 
Emerson,  Hedge  wrote  an  account  of  the  origin  of  the  "Transcendental 
Club,"  which  shows  how  the  influence  of  German  philosophy  was  first 
brought  to  bear  upon  American  Unitarianism : 

"In  September,  1836,  on  the  day  of  the  second  centennial  anniver 
sary  of  Harvard  College,  Mr.  Emerson,  George  Ripley,  and  myself,  with 
one  other,53  chanced  to  confer  together  on  the  state  of  current  opinion 
in  theology  and  philosophy,  which  we  agreed  in  thinking  very  unsatis 
factory.  .  .  .  What  we  strongly  felt  was  dissatisfaction  with  the  reigning 
sensuous  philosophy,  dating  from  Locke,  on  which  our  Unitarian  theol 
ogy  was  based.  The  writings  of  Coleridge,  recently  edited  by  Marsh,  and 
some  of  Carlyle's  earlier  essays,  especially  the  'Characteristics'  and 
'Signs  of  the  Times,'  had  created  a  ferment  in  the  minds  of  some  of  the 
young  clergy  of  that  day.  We  four  concluded  to  call  a  few  like-minded 
seekers  together  on  the  following  week.  Some  dozen  of  us  met  in  Bos 
ton,  in  the  house,  I  believe,  of  Mr.  Ripley.  .  .  .  These  were  the  earliest 
of  a  series  of  meetings  held  from  time  to  time,  as  occasion  prompted,  for 
seven  or  eight  years." 

52  "A  Memory  of  Dr.  Hedge"  [By  J.  H.  Allen],  Unitar.  R.,  XXXIV,  269. 

53  This   was   George    Putnam.     But  he  was   not   fully   in   sympathy  with   the 
movement,  and  did  not  attend  after  the  first  meeting. 


ATTITUDE  AND  METHOD  25 


CHAPTER  II. 
EMERSON  :    His  PHILOSOPHICAL  ATTITUDE  AND  METHOD. 

The  life  of  Emerson  has  been  so  often  told  that  it  needs  no  restating. 
One  hesitates  to  say  again  that  "the  blood  of  eight  generations  of  min 
isters  flowed  in  his  veins/'  But  this  is  a  most  important  thing  to  notice 
in  any  study  of  his  philosophy.  Emerson  approached  philosophy  with  a 
religious  attitude.  If  one  hesitates  also  to  say  again  that  after  being 
ordained  as  a  Unitarian  minister  in  Boston  in  1829,  Emerson  resigned 
his  charge  four  years  later  because  of  his  unwillingness  to  administer 
the  ordinance  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  continued  thenceforth,  with  the 
beauty  and  serenity  of  a  great  character,  to  announce  from  the  lecture 
platform  his  inspiring  spiritual  perceptions,  still  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  this  was  the  other  side  of  the  same  matter, — Emerson  approached 
religion  with  the  attitude  of  a  philosopher.  Xo  philosophy  was  possible 
to  him  without  its  having  a  basis  in  religious  instinct ;  no  religious  faith 
or  form  could  be  accepted  that  had  not  its  justification  in|  the  light  of 
reason*-  In  his  mind  the  two  were  neither  separate  nor  separable. 

•  If  his  attitude  toward  religion  is  the  first  thing  to  note  in  gaining  a 
correct  point  of  view  for  estimating  Emerson's  philosophy,  his  attitude 
toward  practical  conduct  has  also  its  importance  in  enabling  us  to  read 
him  with  that  sympathy  which  is  essential  to  any  sort  of  justice.  Not 
philosophy  for  its  own  sake,  but  philosophy  for  its  bearing  on  the  life  of 
men  was  ever  in  his  eye.  and  it  is  on  thi>  account  that  lie  can  be  read 
without  previous  philosophical  training.  His  "practical  idealism"  was 
refleQtedjmqst  remarkably  in  his  life.  We  could  not  think  of  Emerson 
as  living  in  stateliness  and  ease,  for  his  teachings  of  heroism,  of  pru 
dence,  of  the  homely  virtues,  would  make  this  ridiculous ;  nor  yet  as 
surrounded  by  scenes  of  embittering  and  debasing  poverty,  for  his  whole 
some,  ever-smiling  optimism  would  then  have  been  impossible,  even  to 
him.  It  is  evident  enough,  also,  that  he  could  not  have  entered  into  the 
Brook  Farm  or  Fruitlands  experiments,  for  his  shrewd  Yankee  sense 
glints  forth  at  every  turn ;  nor  yet  could  he  have  turned  away  coldly 
from  such  noble  dreams  of  world  regeneration,  for  his  humor  was  ever  ; 
more  kindly  than  keen,  his  hopes  always  above  his  expectations.  And 
so,  again,  Emerson  could  never  join  in  the  excited  tumult  of  the  Aboli- 


26  EMERSON 

tionists,  for  his  soul  was  calm  and  his  faith  mighty ;  yet  the  murder  of 
Lovejoy  and  the  desertion  of  Webster  roused  him  to  indignation.  In  all 
this  we  note  a  certain  aloofness  caused  by  his  serenity,  or  his  optimism, 
or  that  chilliness  of  temperament  of  which  Margaret  Fuller  complained 
and  to  which  he  dolefully  but  blandly  confessed ;  and  side  by  side  with 
this  we  find  a  philosophy  of  which  one  of  the  main  essentials  was  the 
dependence  of  pure  thought  upon  practical  conduct. 

It  is  not,  however,  its  religious  or  its  pragmatic  aspects  that  have 
caused  Emerson's  philosophy  to  be  charged  with  a  fundamental  ama 
teurishness — if  I  may  so  say — a  lack  of  system,  of  philosophical  con 
sistency,  indeed  of  that  logical  soundness  which  is  essential  to  an  orig 
inal  thinker  worthy  of  any  serious  consideration.  There  is  no  need  to 
remind  the  philosophic  world  that  Emerson  was  primarily  a  poet.  Even, 
indeed  especially,  in  his  prose,  it  is  ever  the  poet  who  is  speaking.  We 
have  here  just  the  reverse  of  those  ancient  philosophers  who  reasoned 
out  their  systems  in  the  form  of  verse ;  we  have  the  appearance  of 
philosophy  but  the  soul  of  poetry.  The  characteristic  of  the  poet  is  en 
thusiasm,  which  leads  him,  in  his  great  delight  over  the  discovery  of  any 
new  truth  to  state  it  with  the  exaggeration  which  his  high  emotion  leads 
hijES-iojissume.  "Language  overstates,"  says  Emerson  (I,  190)  ;  and 
the  freedom  of  his  own  prose  form  leads  him  to  extreme  overstatement. 
"I  would  put  myself  in  the  attitude  to  look  in  the  eye  of  abstract  truth, 
and  I  cannot.  I  blench  and  withdraw  on  this  side  and  on  that"  (II,  309). 
The  question  must  inevitably  occur,  Does  Emerson  remain  a  man  of  let 
ters,  merely,  who  dabbled  in  philosophy,  or  is  he  a  philosopher  who 
chose,  as  the  mighty  Plato  himself  had  chosen,  to  reformulate  the 
thoughts  of  his  predecessors  and  give  them  an  artistic  rendering? 

No  one  who  wished  well  by  Emerson  would  press  an  analogy  to 
Plato,  whose  greatness  as  a  philosopher  so  easily  transcended  whatever 
limitations  he  may  have  had.  But  that  Emerson  had  a  right  conception 
of  philosophy,  and  worked  at  it  not  as  a  literary  dilettante  but  with  the 
seriousness  of  one  deeply  concerned  with  the  problems  themselves,  must 
be  recognized  fully  if  we  are  to  secure  for  our  subject  a  fair  hearing. 
So  widespread  is  the  belief  that  Emerson's  inconsistencies  are  funda 
mental,  his  want  of  logic  and  system  a  congenital  defect,  and  hence  his 
contribution  to  philosophy  merely  an  imaginative  restatement  with  some 
sort  of  mystical  interpretation  of  various  suggestive  thinkers  whom  he 
had  read  at  haphazard,  that  I  may  be  pardoned  for  adding  to  my  own 
conviction  to  the  contrary  the  authority  of  some  whose  names  cannot 
fail  to  give  pause  to  those  who  have  too  hastily  assumed  the  truth  of 
these  singular  impeachments. 


ATTITUDE  AND   METHOD  27 

Not  wholly  singular,  one  must  admit,  since  Emerson  himself  in  cer 
tain  famous  phrases  has  encouraged  the  belief.  The  "infinitely  repellent 
particles"  to  which  in  playful  modesty  he  compared  his  sentences  in  an 
often  quoted  letter  to  Carlyle,  at  once  caught  the  popular  imagination 
and  comforted  some  who  have  found  themselves  on  a  first  reading 
puzzled  and  annoyed.  "A  foolish  consistency  is  the  hobgoblin  of  little 
minds"  (II,  58)  is  usually  quoted  without  the  word  ''foolish/'  and  I 
have  now  and  again  heard  this  splendid  manifesto  of  the  truth-seeker 
turned  against  the  philosopher.  But  it  may  be  said  that  Emerson  ex 
pressly  denied  his  ability  to  use  "that  systematic  form  which  is  reckoned 
essential  in  treating  the  science  of  the  mind"  (XII,  n  ),  and  that  indeed 
he  goes  so  far  as  to  say,  "The  moment  it  [Logic]  would  appear  as  prop 
ositions  and  have  a  separate  value,  it  is  worthless"  (II,  507)  ;  and  how 
can  one  claim  standing  as  a  system-maker  who  says  naively,  "I  know 
be.tt.er  than  to  claim  any  completeness  for  the  picture.  I  am  a  fragment,  ( 
and  this  is  a  fragment  of  me"  (III,  83), — "I^simply  experiment,  an  end 
less  seeker  with  no  Past  at  my  back"  (II,  297)  ?  But  all  this,  so  far  as 
it  was  not  mere  modesty,  came  from  a  wise  caution,  and  an  almost  mor 
bid  horror  of  stifling  truth  by  forcing  it  into  set  and  definite  terms.54  It 
was  on  this  account  that  he  could  say  so  blandly  to  a  doubting  follower, 
"Very  well ;  I  do  not  wish  disciples" ; 55  for  I  believe  that  Emerson 
would  have  felt  the  founding  of  a  school  an  impeachment  on  his  honesty 
— a  closing  of  the  windows  that  looked  toward  heaven.  With  all  defer 
ence  to  the  mighty  Kant,  no  phrase  would  have  given  him  a  keener  pain 
than  "Aber  Er^erson  sagt."  It  should  be  evident  to  anyone  who  feels 
competent  to  criticize  Emerson's  want  of  consistency  and  system  that  his 
own  confession  of  it  comes  to  no  more  than  a  perpetual  openness  of  mind 
to  receive  new  truth,  coupled  with  a  skeptical  attitude  toward  the  acquir 
ing  of  definite  results  by  too  formal  a  method.  But  Emerson  was  no 
cheap  radical,  no  mere  iconoclast  in  his  unsystematic  method.  "I  would 
gladly  be  moral,"  he  comments  by  the  way,  "and  keep  due  metes 
and  bounds,  which  I  dearly  love,  and  allow  the  most  to  the  will  of  man ; 
but  I  have  set  my  heart  on  honesty  in  this  chapter"  (III,  71).  And  on 
honesty  his  heart  was  set  no  less  in  every  chapter  he  wrote. 

But  it  soon  became  a  tradition  to  consider  Emerson  from  the  point 
of  view  to  which  his  confessions,  or  rather  boasts,  of  inconsistency  and 

54  In  this  he  anticipated  Ibsen,  who  felt  that  a  particularly  vital  truth  might 
live    for    perhaps    twenty   years    before   becoming   false !      See   An   Enemy   of   the 
People. 

55  Charles  J.  Woodbury's  Talks  with  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  p.  60. 


28  EMERSON  ^ 

formlessness  so  easily  laid  him  open.  Lowell,  whose  picturesqueness  of 
phrase  often  makes  his  merest  witticism  memorable,  wrote  in  his  essay 
on  "Emerson  the  Lecturer"  56  of  "a  chaos  full  of  shooting  stars,  a  jumble 
of  creative  forces" ;  and  the  poets  and  men  of  letters  who  have  followed 
Lowell  in  judging  Emerson  have  usually  been  impressed,  as  Lowell  was, 
by  the  greatness  of  his  mind  and  the  imperfection  of  his  sense  of  form, 
which  latter  they  have  rather  assumed  than  proven  kept  Emerson  from 
taking  any  place  in  the  ranks  of  the  real  philosophers.  Thus  Holmes,  in 
that  delightful  book  on  Emerson  which  has  been  called  "the  biography 
of  a  wood  thrush  by  a  canary  bird,"  when  the  moment  comes  in  which 
he  shoujd..  state  the  value  of  Emerson's  thought  contents  himself  with 
saying,  [^He  was  a  man  of  intuition,  of  insight,  a  seer,  a  poet,  with  a 
tendency  to  mysticism."  I7  And  Woodberry,  who  disclaiming  intellectual 
sympathy  with  Emersonian  still  say,  "I  feel  in  his  work  the  presence  of 
a  great  mind.  His  is  the  only  great  mind  that  America  has  produced  in 
literature,"  58  still  has  it  as  his  final  verdict  that  Emerson  is  to  be  re 
garded  only  as  a  poet.  More  outspoken,  indeed  overtly  denunciatory,  is 
Richard  (iarnett:'1  "He  could  see,  but  he  could  not  prove;  he  could  an- 
jiounce,  but  he  could  not  argue.  .  His  intuitions  were  his  sole  guide; 
what  they  revealed  appeared  to  hinr  self-evident ;  the  ordinary  paths  by 
which  men  arrive  at  conclusions  were  closed  to  him.  To  those  in  spir 
itual  sympathy  with  himself  he  is  not  only  fascinating,  but  authorita 
tive ;  his  words  authenticate  themselves  by  the  response  they  awake  in 
the  breast.  But  the  reader  who  will  have  reasons  gets  none,  save  reason 
to  believe  that  the  oracle  is  an  imposition."  59  Thus  we  s^e  that  the  tra 
dition  of  Emerson's  inability  to  reason  in  the  manner  of  even  an  ordinary 
thinker  is  well  established  among  his  literary  followers;  the  same  sort 
of  criticism  may  still  be  found  in  such  writers  as  Mr.  Paul  Elmore  More 
(Shelbourne  Essays)  and  Mr.  Van  Wyck  Brooks  (America's  Coming  of 
Age). 

True,  statements  to  this  effect  by  more  philosophic  writers  are  not 
wanting,  from  the  tirade  evoked  by  the  First  Series  of  Essays  in  the 
Biblical  Repository  and  Princeton  Review60  to  the  dissertation  of  Mr. 

**Works,  I,  353- 

67  American  Men  of  Letters :     Emerson,  p.  390. 

88  English  Men  of  Letters :     Emerson,  p.  176. 

59  Great  Writers  :    Emerson,  p.  93. 

10  Vol.  XIII,  p.  539.  The  anonymous  reviewer  says  that  Emerson's  is  "the 
obscurity  not  of  a  deep  but  of  a  muddy  stream,  and  the  brilliancy  of  the  surface 
is  little  else  than  the  iridescence  on  a  bowl  of  soap-bubbles.  .  .  .  From  beginning 
to  end  there  is  a  total  absence  of  coherence  and  unity." 


ATTITUDE  AND   METHOD  29 

Charles  M.  Bakewell  ;61  and  even  Emerson's  co-religionists  have  at  times 
patronized  or  condoned.62 

But  while  it  would  be  ''special  pleading"  and  hence  false  pleading 
(on  behalf  of  a  man  who  would  have  scorned  such  friendly  consolation 
with  all  the  fervor  of  a  Job)  to  deny  the  manifest  inconsistencies  of 
Emerson  where  occasionally  they  do  occur,  or  bring  in  only  the  evidence 
of  those  who  will  testify  that  these  inconsistencies  are  inconsequential  and 
that  Emerson's  command  of  logic  was  not  only  real  but  of  a  high  order, 
still  I  cannot  but  feel  that  these  latter,  both  by  the  nature  of  their  testi 
mony  and  their  right  to  judge,  should  have  put  this  matter  forever  be 
yond  dispute.  I  shall  mention  merely  in  passing  some  of  the  literary 
and  religious  writers  who  have  borne  witness  to  Emerson's  intellectual 
faculties,  and  then  pass  to  those  whose  main  interest  is  in  philosophy, 
since  they  have  here,  surely,  most  right  to  speak. 

In  a  delightful  account  of  how  Emerson  endeavored  (and  all  in 
vain)  to  induce  him  to  abandon  his  peculiar  type  of  verse,  Walt  Whit 
man  recounts  :63  "It  was  an  argument-statement,  reconnoitering,  review, 
attack,  and  pressing  home  (like  an  army  corps  in  order,  artillery,  cav 
alry,  infantry)  ...  no  judge's  charge  ever  more  complete  or  con 
vincing."  Passing  over  Mr.  John  Burroughs'  obvious  though  generally 
neglected  comment  that  certain  of  the  essays  ''have  more  logical  se 
quence  and  evolution  than  certain  others,"  64  let  me  refer  only  to  the 
latest,  as  it  is  the  best,  of  the  statements  by  Emerson's  more  literary 
champions.  Mr.  O.  W.  Firkins  in  his  recent  delightfully  written  book 
devotes  considerable  space  to  a  thorough-going  defense  of  Emerson's 
very  logic.  His  conclusion  is :  "Emerson,  then,  is  disinclined  to  logic ; 
he  does  not  care  to  be  delayed  or  bored.  But  the  folly  of  critics,  encour 
aged  by  a  word  of  his  own,  has  converted  this  disinclination  into  in 
capacity."  65  Mr.  Firkins  cites  various  instances  of  Emerson's  "consecu 
tive  and  logical  reasoning." 

61  "The  Philosophy  of  Emerson,"  Phil.  R.,  XII,  530.     I  find  nothing,  however, 
in  this  essay  which  tends  toward  the  establishment  of  the  point  in  hand. 

62  "He  is  not  a  logical  writer,"  said  the  nothing-if-not-logical  Theodore  Par 
ker,    though   as   always   the   mere  assertion   is   allowed   to   stand.     "We   must  not 
expect  a  seer  to  be  an  organizer,"  says  Bartol,  "any  more  than  ...  an  astronomer 
an  engineer.     We  must  supplement  his  calling,  extend  his  vision,  and  perhaps  cor 
rect  his  view." 

63  Specimen  Days,  p.  172. 

64  Indoor  Studies,  p.  145. 

65  Firkins'  Emerson,  p.  299.     This  book  is  deserving  of  especial  praise.     Even 
the  chapter  on  "Emerson's  Philosophy"  is  excellent,  though  less  satisfactory  than 
the  rest.     It  is  curious  that  Mr.  Firkins,  who  insists  so  strongly  upon  Emerson's 
consecutiveness  and  coherence,  should  be  more  inconsecutive  and  incoherent  than 
Emerson  himself  in  this  crucial  chapter. 


30  EMERSON 

If,  for  the  sake  of  completeness,  we  were  now  to  record  the  religious 
vote,  we  should  find  that  there  are  abundant  statements,  both  from 
friends  and  foes,  to  show  that  Emerson's  analytical  ability  was  fully  rec 
ognized.  It  will  be  sufficient  if  I  cite  a  single  comment  from  each  camp. 
Says  Edwin  D.  Mead :  "This  rare  consistency  and  persistency  is  the  ever 
notable  thing  in  Emerson.  It  is  the  superficial  man  that  finds  and  talks 
of  inconsistencies  in  Emerson."  66  And  the  Rev.  S.  Law  Wilson  writes : 
"In  moments  of  simple  insight  and  pure  intuition  a  man  does  not  employ 
the  scholastic  terms  and  philosophic  distinctions  that  Emerson  does.  .  .  . 
Evidently  the  Seer  brought  down  with  him  from  his  Watch-tower  of 
Contemplation  very  little  that  he  did  not  take  up  with  him."  67 

Emerson's  method  is  treated  with  most  respect  by  his  most  scholarly 
critics.  Professor  Dewey  says,  in  writing  of  Emerson  as  the  "Philos 
opher  of  Democracy,"  68  "I  am  not  acquainted  with  any  writer,  no  matter 
how  assured  his  position  in  treatises  upon  the  history  of  philosophy, 
/whose  movement  of  thought  is  more  compact  and  unified,  nor  one  who 
icombines  more  adequately  diversity  of  intellectual  attack  with  concen 
tration  of  form  and  effort."  Professor  Miinsterberg  says  that  his  sen- 
/  tences — those  infinitely  repellent  particles — "are  not  only  in  harmony 
with  each  other,  they  are  in  deepest  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  modern 
philosophy."  69  Tyndall  thought  that  "Emerson  was  a  splendid  mani 
festation  of  reason  in  its  most  comprehensive  form" ;  and  Grimm,  more 
nearly  than  anyone  else,  has  explained  both  how  the  impression  of  Emer 
son's  inconsecutiveness  exists,  and  what  is  the  attitude  of  those  who  de 
fend  him :  "At  first  one  can  detect  no  plan,  no  order,  and  we  seek  won- 
deringly  for  the  hidden  connection  of  these  sentences.  .  .  .  Soon,  how 
ever,  we  discover  the  deep  underlying  law  according  to  which  these 
thoughts  are  evolved,  and  the  strict  sequence."  70  And  what  that  law 
is,  is  beautifully  illustrated  by  Horace  Mann  in  a  letter  quoted  by  Mr. 
Conway:71  "As  a  man  stationed  in  the  sun  would  see  all  the  planets 
moving  around  in  one  direction  and  in  perfect  harmony,  while  to  an  eye 
on  the  earth  their  motions  are  full  of  crossings  and  retrogressions,  so  he, 
from  his  central  position  in  the  spiritual  world,  discovers  order  and  har 
mony  where  others  can  discern  only  confusion  and  irregularity."  Emer 
son  himself  was  as  conscious  of  the  underlying  consistency  of  his  think 
ing  as  he  was  of  its  superficial  discrepancies.  Immediately  after  the  pas- 

66  Genius  and  Character  of  Emerson,  p.  236. 

67  The  Theology  of  Modern  Literature,  p.  105. 

68  International  Journal  of  Ethics,  1903,  p.  405. 

69  Harvard  Psych.  Studies,  vol.  II,  p.  17. 

70  Essays  on  Literature,  p.  25. 

71  Emerson  at  Home  and  Abroad,  p.  149. 


ATTITUDE  AND   METHOD  31 

sage  I  referred  to  above  (p.  27),  where  he  admits  that  he  cannot  use 
"that  systematic  form  which  is  reckoned  essential  in  treating  the  science 
of  the  mind,"  he  continues :  "But  if  one  can  say  so  without  arrogance,  I 
might  suggest  that  he  who  contents  himself  with  dotting  a  fragmentary 
curve,  recording  only  what  facts  he  has  observed,  without  attempting  to 
arrange  them  within  one  outline,  follows  a  system  also, — a  system  as 
grand  as  any  other.  ...  I  confess  to  a  little  distrust  of  that  complete 
ness  of  system  which  metaphysicians  are  apt  to  affect"  (XII,  n). 

It  has  seemed  to  me  essential  to  state  the  case  at  this  tiresome 
length  because  without  a  substantial  agreement  in  this  matter  it  is  im 
possible  to  consider  Emerson's  philosophy  with  that  fundamental  respect 
which  is  essential  to  any  sort  of  justice ;  and  I  have  been  forced  to  pre 
sent  as  fairly  as  I  could  the  consensus  of  opinion  on  the  subject  because 
it  is  not  a  matter  for  analysis  or  for  argument.  I  may  now  only  trust 
that  anyone  who  may  look  through  the  statement  that  I  am  about  to 
make  of  Emerson's  philosophy  will  do  so  with  exactly  the  same  attitude 
that  he  would  if  this  were  an  introduction  to  the  philosophy  of  Schelling. 

For  it  is  to  Schelling,  of  course,  that  Emerson  is  closest  akin.  Mr. 
John  S.  Harrison  ~-  throws  the  whole  emphasis  upon  his  reading  of  Plato 
and  the  Xeo-Platonists,  and  Mr.  Firkins  concurs.  Professor  Riley  says 
that  Emerson's  "knowledge  of  German  metaphysic  was  slight  and  sec 
ondary"  ;73  and  Cabot  himself  said  definitely  this  same  thing.  On  the 
other  hand  Mr.  Lockwood  claims  the  direct  influence  of  Schelling,74  and 
Mr.  Goddard  more  guardedly  and  with  more  warrant  speaks  of  the 
striking  similarity  between  Emerson's  thought  and  Coleridge's,  and  con 
sequently  between  Emerson's  and  Schelling's,  and  shows  successfully,  it 
seems  to  me,  that  this  was  a  more  vitally  stimulating  if  less  continuous 
influence  than  that  of  Plato  and  the  Neo-Platonists.75 

But  while  Emerson  was  no  doubt  stimulated  either  directly  by 
Schelling  or  indirectly  through  Coleridge,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he 
was  an  qriginaljhinker,  and  arrived  at  his  conclusions  by  very  much  the 
same  methods  as  all  other  philosophers  have  done,  however  much  he 
may  have  attributed  a  religious  connotation  to  any  new  truth  which  he 
felt  that  he  had  acquired.76  His  purpose  was  not  to  make  a  system 


72  The  Teachers  of  Emerson.     New  York:     Sturgis  and  Walton,  1910. 

73  American  Thought,  p.  159. 

74  Emerson  as  a  Philosopher,  pp.  6,  /. 

75  Studies  in  New  England  Transcendentalism,  pp.  80,  81. 

76  "There  can  be  no  greater  blunder,"   says   Mr.   John   M.   Robertson   in  his 
Modern   Humanists    (p.    120),    "than    to   suppose   that   men   who   use   the   analytic 
method  begin  to  get  notions  by  analysing  mechanically.     The  act  of  analysis  is  it 
self  a  reaching  forward  identical  in  character  with  what  Emerson  called  the  secret 
.augury." 


32 


«*'<: 


EMERSON 


\ 


which  would  stand  with  or  supplement  the  systems  before  him,  but  sim 
ply  to  answer  for  himself  those  "obstinate  questionings"  with  which  we 
are  all  concerned  in  our  deepest  moments.  It  may  be  too  much  to  say 
that  Emerson  would  have  arrived  at  just  the  same  results  if  Schelling 
had  not  written;  but  a  man  of  Emerson's  open-mindedness,  so  free  with 
ihis  quotations,  so  eager  indeed  to  attribute  his  own  ideas  to  other  men, 
could  never  have  announced  his  "discoveries"  in  the  hesitating,  awe 
struck  manner  in  which  he  gives  them  forth,  if  he  had  not  thought  them 
revealed  to  him  in  those  sacred  moments  when  he  felt  himself  to  be  "part 
and  parcel  of  God"  (I,  16).  The  question  of  his  indebtedness,  therefore, 
seems  to  me  to  be  of  little  moment. 

Here,  then,  is  material  for  a  system, — shall  we  say? — and  if  we  can 
arrange  it  in  some  sort  of  order,  that  of  itself  may  enable  us  to  see  more 
clearly  what  value  it  may  have.  So  ordered  and  systematized  it  will  doubt 
less  prove  unsatisfactory ;  but  there  may  be  some  gain, — perhaps  enough  to 
compensate  for  the  loss.  But  no  one  will  claim  for  it  finality,  and  Emer 
son  least  of  all.  In  the  following  chapter  I  shall  attempt  a  statement  of 
Emerson's  answer  to  the  question,  "What  is  Reality?"  Then  I  shall 
proceed  to  his  answer  to  the  question,  "How  is  this  explanation  of  Reality 
possible?"  In  recognizing  the  inconsistencies  in  his  answer  to  this  sec 
ond  question  and  in  putting  together  the  suggestions  of  what  seems  to 
me  his  final  theory,  I  trust  that  I  am  not  going  farther  than  there  is  war 
rant  for  in  those  passages  which,  though  fragmentary  and  imperfect,  still 
give  us  genuine  suggestions  of  what  he  intended  as  his  final  word.  In 
order  to  do  this,  it  will  often  be  necessary  to  translate  him  into  the 
language  of  philosophy.  But  it  is  a  thankless  task  to  put  Emerson's  con 
ceptions  into  the  stiff  .terms  of  the  metaphysicians,  and  I  shall  endeavor 
to  keep  him  as  much  as  possible  in  his  own  beautiful  "original."  There 
is  danger;  also,  with  so  vague  and  suggestive  a  writer,  of  reading  into 
him  the  ideas  in  one's  own  mind ;  therefore  with  no  more  comment  than 
is  needed,  I  shall  allow  him  to  speak  for  himself,  and  as  often  as  what 
he  says  offers  its  own  explanation.  It  shall  be  my  attempt  to  think 
through  the  subject  in  what  seems  to  me  Emerson's  own  plan;  but  I 
shall  attempt  to  arrange  in  some  sort  of  logical  order  the  various  diffi 
culties  which  presented  themselves  to  his  mind,  and  to  state  expressly 
the  steps  by  which  he  seems  to  have  arrived,  sometimes  unconsciously  to 
himself,  at  his  more  significant  "discoveries."  In  doing  this  I  must  crave 
some  patience,  especially  at  the  outset  of  the  following  discussion,  for 
the  reiteration  of  much  that  is  both  obvious  and  as  old  as  thought  itself. 


NATURE,  THE  OVER-SOUL,  AND  THE   INDIVIDUAL  33 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  EMERSON:    NATURE,  THE  OVER-SOUL,  AND  THE 

INDIVIDUAL. 

"A  noble  doubt  perpetually  suggests  itself,"  writes  Emerson  in 
his  first  published  work,  "whether  this  end  [Discipline]  be  not  the  Final 
Cause  of  the  Universe;  and  whether  nature  outwardly  exists"  (I,  52). 
The  cause  of  this  doubt  is  "my  utter  impotence  to  test  the  authenticity  '^/ 
of  the  report  of  my  senses,  to  know  whether  the  impressions  they  make 
on  me  correspond  with  outlying  objects."  In  spite  of  its  age  and  obvious 
ness,  this,  as  the  starting  point  of  Emerson's  philosophy,  is  a  point  of 
view  on  which  he  always  insists,  and  to  which  he  never  hesitates  to 
recur.  "The  senses  interfere  everywhere,  and  mix  their  own  structure 
with  all  they  report  of"  (VI,  295).  "Souls  never  touch  their  objects. 
.  .  .  Dream  delivers  us  to  dream,  and  there  is  no  end  to  illusion.  .  .  . 
There  are  moods  in  which  we  court  suffering,  in  the  hope  that  here  at 
least  we  shall  find  reality"  (III,  52,  53).  But  though  this  is  generally  a 
matter  of  mood  and  impression,  Emerson's  conclusion  is  as  sane  as  it  is 
inevitable :  there  is  no  way  of  knowing  what  nature  is,  so,  "Be  it  what  A  ,/ 
it  may,  it  is  ideal  to  me  so  long  as  I  cannot  try  the  accuracy  of  my  "y\ 
senses"  (I,  53). 

But  this  does  not  affect  the  "stability  of  nature."  The  great  reality 
is  there,  always  ready  for  us  to  come  to  it  when  we  will,  and  to  interpret 
it  and  enjoy  it  as  Nature  (III,  53).  Indeed  it  is  our  place  to  come  more 
and  more  into  association  with  Nature.  In  calling  it  "illusion"  we  do 
not  affect  its  practical  reality  in  the  least.  "We  come  to  our  own  and 
make  friends  with  matter,  which  the  ambitious  clatter  of  the  schools 
would  persuade  us  to  despise.  We  can  never  part  with  it ;  the  mind 
loves  its  old  home"  (III,  165).  "Whether  nature  enjoy  a  substantial  ex 
istence  without,  or  is  only  the  apocalypse  of  the  mind,  it  is  alike  useful 
and  alike  venerable  to  me"  (I,  53). 

Then  if  nature  is  illusion  and  its  laws  are  permanent,  what  is  the 
reality  which  imposes  these  laws?  The  answer  is  obvious.  "It  is  the 
uniform  effect  of  culture  on  the  human  mind,  not  to  shake  our  faith  in 
the  stability  of  particular  phenomena,  as  of  heat,  water,  azote;  but  to 
lead  us  to  regard  nature  as  phenomenon,  not  a  substance;  to  attribute 


34  EMERSON 

necessary  existence  to  spirit;  to  esteem  nature  as  an  accident  and  an 
effect"  (I,  54).  This  is  the  second  obvious  point  in  Emerson's  Idealism, 
and  this  also  he  is  never  weary  of  restating.  "On  this  power,  this  all- 
dissolving  unity,  the  emphasis  of  heaven  and  earth  is  laid.  Nature  is 
brute  but  as  the  soul  quickens  it;  Nature  always  the  effect,  mind  the 
flowing  cause"  (VIII,  212). 

But  this  indiscriminate  use  of  "spirit"  and  of  "mind"  as  the  cause 
of  nature  leads  to  the  further  question,  Of  what  spirit  or  mind  is  nature 
the  effect  ?  The  first  answer  seems  to  be  that  the  source  is  purely  human. 
"The  Intellect  builds  the  Universe  and  is  the  key  to  all  it  contains"  (XII, 
4).  "Every  law  in  nature,  as  gravity,  centripetence,  repulsion,  polarity, 
undulation,  has  a  counterpart  in  the  intellect"  (VIII,  211)  ;  and  on  this 
"perfect  parallelism  between  the  laws  of  Nature  and  the  laws  of  thought" 
.(VIII,  13)  is  based  this  third  development  of  Emerson's  thinking  ac 
cording  to  the  order  in  which  I  am  trying  to  arrange  it.  His  statement 
•of  this  position  is  very  frequent, — sometimes  rhetorical,  sometimes  ab 
solute,  and  sometimes  argumentative.  "What  if  you  shall  come  to 
realize  that  the  play  and  the  playground  of  all  this  pompous  history  are 
radiations  from  yourself,  and  that  the  sun  borrows  his  beams?"  (VI, 
302).  "Man  is  always  throwing  his  praise  or  blame  on  events,  and  does 
not  see  that  he  only  is  real,  and  the  world  his  mirror  and  echo"  (X,  185). 
"We  have  learned  that  we  do  not  see  directly,  but  mediately,  and  that  we 
have  no  means  of  correcting  these  colored  and  distorting  lenses  which 
we  are,  or  of  computing  the  amount  of  their  errors.  Perhaps  these  sub 
ject-lenses  have  a  creative  power;  perhaps  there  are  no  objects.  Once 
we  lived  in  what  we  saw;  now  the  rapaciousness  of  this  new  power, 
which  threatens  to  absorb  all  things,  engages  us.  Nature,  art,  persons, 
letters,  religion,  objects,  successively  tumble  in,  and  God  is  but  one  of  its 
ideas.  Nature  and  literature  are  subjective  phenomena;  every  evil  and 
every  good  thing  is  a  shadow  which  we  cast"  (III,  77). 

But  this  is  not  the  only,  nor  indeed  the  usual  explanation  which 
Emerson  gives  for  the  appearance  and  dependence  of  nature.  "It  is  a 
sufficient  account  of  that  Appearance  we  call  the  World,  that  God  will 
teach  a  human  mind,  and  so  makes  it  the  receiver  of  a  certain  number 
of  congruent  sensations,  which  we  call  sun  and  moon,  man  and  woman, 
house  and  trade"  (I,  52).  Indeed  it  is  the  purpose  of  Emerson's  first 
little  book  on  Nature  to  discover  back  of  Nature  the  universal  soul 
which  produces  it.  ,  "Spirit  is  the  Creator.  Spirit  hath  life  in  itself.  And 
man  in  all  ages  and  countries  embodies  it  in  his  language  as  the  Father" 
(I,  33).  "Through  all  its  kingdoms,  to  the  suburbs  and  outskirts  c 
things,  it  is  faithful  to  the  cause  whence  it  had  its  origin.  It  always 


NATURE,  THE  OVER-SOUL,   AND  THE   INDIVIDUAL  35 

speaks  of  Spirit.     It  suggests  the  absolute.     It  is  a  perpetual  effect.     It 
is  a  great  shadow  pointing  always  to  the  sun  behind  us"  (I,  65). 

Thus  it  is  not  to  the  Fichtean  side  that  Emerson  inclines.  Cabot 
says  he  had  read  Berkeley  "in  early  youth,"  (p.  291)  ;  and  he  gives  a  let 
ter  to  Margaret  Fuller  in  which  Emerson  writes  of  "remembering  the 
joy  with  which  in  my  boyhood  I  caught  the  first  hint  of  the  Berkeleyan 
philosophy,  and  which  I  certainly  never  lost  sight  of  afterwards."  77  But 
beyond  this  prejudice  of  his  reading,  we  are  forced  to  judge  Emerson  in 
this  regard  in  the  light  of  his  natural  attitude  of  mind.  It  has  often  been 
noted  that  it  is  largely  a  matter  of  temperament  that  one  man  holds  to 
one  system  of  philosophy  and  another  to  another.  Certainly  Idealism 
was  a  necessity  to  one  of  Emerson's  nature,  and  just  as  certainly  that 
form  of  Idealism  which  swamped  the  universal  in  the  individual  ego 
was  impossible  to  him.  His  pages  are  full  of  the  expression  of  his  sense 
of  the  unimportance  of  his  individual  self  in  the  great  scheme  of  things. 
At  times  his  statement  of  this  seemingly  contradictory  point  of  view  is 
characteristically  extreme.  "Nothing  is  of  us.  All  is  of  God.  The  in 
dividual  is  always  mistaken"  (IIl7^rj7~Blif  for  the  most  part  he  has  a 
less  impassioned  argument  to  offer.  "A  little  consideration  of  what 
takes  place  around  us  every  day  would  show  us  that  a  higher  law  than 
that  of  our  will  regulates  events"  (II,  132).  "As  with  events,  so  with 
thoughts.  When  I  watch  that  flowing  river,  which,  out  of  regions  I  see 
not,  pours  for  a  season  its  streams  into  me,  I  see  that  I  am  a  pensioner ; 
not  a  cause  but  a  surprised  spectator  of  this  ethereal  water;  that  I  de 
sire  and  look  up  and  put  myself  in  the  attitude  of  reception,  but  from 
some  alien  energy  the  visions  come"  (II,  252). 

This  contradiction  must  be  resolved  before  we  can  go  further.  If  the 
individual  soul  creates  what  it  observes,  and  "God  is  but  one  of  its  ideas," 
"tEen  it  is  not  "from  some  alien  energy  the  visions  come."  That  both  of 
these  are  misstatements  because  overstatements,  is  patent.  Xo  one  who 
reads  him  will  think  of  taking  it  as  Emerson's  actual  belief  either  that 
God — the  real  God — is  no  more  than  an  idea  of  man,  or  that  the  source 
of  things  is  "alien"  to  the  observer.  Let  this  most  undeniable  instance  of 
the  unreality  of  his  contradictions  speak  for  many  more.  Emerson,  as 
I  said  before,  is  not  to  be  read  too  literally.  Moreover,  we  have  ex 
aggerated  his  disconnectedness ;  many  of  his  statements  are  softened 
wonderfully  when  they  are  read  in  the  tone  of  the  essay  in  which  they 
occur.  And  so  perhaps  the  best  way  to  allow  Emerson  to  solve  this 
seeming  contradiction  is  to  quote  him  while  he  makes  it  again  and  in  the 
ne  breath.  "It  [the  individual  soul]  feels  that  the  grass  grows  and 


77  A  Memoir  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  vol.  II,  p.  478. 


36  EMERSON 

the  stone  falls  by  a  law  inferior  to,  and  dependent  on,  its  nature."  And 
immediately  the  explanation  follows:  "Behold,  it  saith,  I  am  born  into 
the  great,  the  universal  mind.  ...  I  am  somehow  receptive  of  the  great 
soul,  and  thereby  do  I  overlook  the  sun  and  the  stars  and  feel  them  to 
be  the  fair  accidents  and  effects  which  change  and  pass.  More  and  more 
the  surges  of  everlasting  nature  enter  into  me,  and  I  become  public  and 
human  in  my  regards  and  actions.  So  come  I  to  live  in  thoughts  and  act 
with  energies  which  are  immortal.  Thus  .  .  .  man  will  come  to  see  that 
the  world  is  the  perennial  miracle  which  the  soul  worketh"  (II,  277). 

This,  then,  is  the  easy  explanation.  To  say  that  the  individual  soul 
creates  its  objects  and  to  say  that  God  creates  them  is  to  say  one  and 
the  same  thing.  "Thjere-is^ne^ind  common  to  all  individual  men.  .  .  . 
Who  hath  access  to  this  universal  mind  is  party  to  all  that  is  or  can  be 
done,  for  this  is  the  only  and  sovereign  agent.  ...  Of  this  universal 
mind  each  individual  man  is  one  more  incarnation,  all  its  properties  con 
sist  in  him"  (II,  9,  10).  It  was  this  extreme  expression  of  pantheism 
which  brought  such  ridicule  upon  Emerson  at  the  outset  of  his  career. 
"I  am  a  transparent  eyeball;  I  am  nothing;  I  see  all;  the  currents  of 
the  Universal  Being  circulate  through  me ;  I  am  part  and  parcel  of  God" 
(I,  16). 

But  Emerson  soon  perceived  a  danger  in  this  point  of  view.  The 
individual  who  is  "part  and  parcel  of  God"  is  no  individual  at  all;  and 
at  certain  moments  Emerson,  like  all  the  rest  of  us,  felt  his  world  of  in 
dividual  persons  and  things  disappearing  in  an  all-absorbing  Totality. 
"I  wish  to  speak  with  all  respect  of  persons,  but  .  .  .  they  melt  so  fast 
into  each  other  it  needs  an  effort  to  treat  them  as  individuals.  .  .  .  But 
this  is  flat  rebellion.  Nature  will  not  be  Buddhist.  .  .  .  She  will  not  re 
main  orbed  in  a  thought  but  rushes  into  persons"  (III,  224). 

This  brings  us  to  the  next  and  most  important  stage  in  Emerson's 
thinking.  We  have  on  the  one  hancr  "that  overpowering  reality,"  "that 
Unity,  that  Over-Soul,  within  which  every  man's  particular  being  is  con 
tained  and  made  one  with  all  other"  (II,  252),  and  to  counterbalance  this 
we  have  the  statement  that  Nature  "rushes  into  persons."  Moreover, 
that  these  "persons"  have  the  power  of  choice  either  to  break  the  laws  of 
Nature  or  to  surrender  themselves  to  the  Universal  Being  is  as  funda 
mental  a  belief  with  Emerson  as  is  the  existence  of  that  "Eternal  One" 
which,  by  being  so,  seems  to  preclude  all  independent  individuality.  In 
deed,  if  reduced  to  a  dilemma  between  his  idealism  and  his  belief  in  the 
freedom  and  integrity  of  the  individual,  Emerson  would,  I  think,  have 
held  to  the  latter. 


NATURE,  THE  OVER-SOUL,   AND  THE   INDIVIDUAL  37 

"For  He  that  ruleth  high  and  wise, 

Nor  pauseth  in  his  plan, 
Will  take  the  sun  out  of  the  skies 

Ere  freedom  out  of  man"   (IX,  174). 

It  becomes  his  problem  henceforth,  as  it  is  that  of  all  Idealism,  to  give  a 
reality,  a  certain  degree  of  independence  and  initiative,  to  the  individuals 
who  live  in  a  world  of  universal  spirit.  How  he  attempts  to  reconcile 
these  opposing  points  of  view  we  shall  consider  in  the  following  chapter. 
But  granting  for  the  present  that  there  is  no  final  contradiction  here, 
there  is  still  a  new  difficulty  in  deciding  how  nature  gets  its  permanence 
by  its  dependence  upon  the  laws  of  mind.  For  if  we  once  cease  to  be 
part  of  the  spirit  which  is  the  cause  of  nature,  our  perception  of  nature 
must  cease  also ;  by  this  arrangement  the  evil-minded  man  would  needs 
be  blind  and  insensible,  wrhereas  his  perception  of  nature  is  as  good  as 
that  of  the  most  virtuous.78  This  is  a  trivial  objection,  and  one  which 
Emerson  never  explained  nor  even  noted,  but  it  seems  to  me  a  necessary 
link  in  an  attempt  to  give  some  completeness  to  his  scheme.  A  sug 
gestion  of  what  his  answer  would  have  been  is  given,  however,  in  a  note 
in  Emerson's  Journal  for  June,  1835: 

"Our  compound  nature  differences  us  from  God,  but  our  reason  7£ 
is  not  to  be  distinguished  from  the  Divine  Essence.  ...  It  [the  Divine 
\    Essence]   is  in  all  men,  even  the  worst,  and  constitutes  them  men.     In 
\   bad  men  it  is  dormant,  in  the  good  efficient :    but  it  is  perfect  and  iden 
tical  in  all.  underneath  the  peculiarities,  the  vices,  and  the  errors  of  the 
\    individual." 

This  is  to  say,  by  implication  at  least,  that  rnan  has  a  three-fold  nature. — 
a  mere  sensory  organism  which  as  a  part  of  nature  never  loses  hold  of 
the  reality  of  which  it  is  only  an  effect,  like  the  lower  forms  from  which 
it  was  evolved ;  above  this  and  springing  from  it,  so  to  speak,  into  a  cer 
tain,  independence  of  thought  and  action,  comes  this  "mediating"  faculty, 
the  understanding;  and  finally,  ready  to  surrender  its  freedom  and  re 
turn  to  the  great  reality  from  which  it  thus  remotely  came,  is  the  reason. {. 

78  Carlyle,  with  more  of  an  impulsive  snatching  at  a  truth  and  less  calm  clear 
sightedness  than  Emerson,  is  led  astray  at  this  very  point.     In  Heroes  and  Hero- 
Worship  he  contends  that  "a  thoroughly  immoral  man  could  not  know  anything" 
(Edition  in  Longman's  English  Classics,  p.  104). 

79  Under  the  immediate  influence  ofvColeridge,  Emerson  is  .here ;  distinguish 
ing  the  ^gason  from  the  understanding,  ^vhich  latter  is  the  "executive  faculty,  the 
hand  of  the   mind,"   which    "mediates    between   the    soul    and   inert    matter,"   and 
"works  in  time  and  space."     But  this,  written  before  his  first  independent  venture 
in  Transcendentalism  proper,  is  merely  an  echo  of  German  idealism,  and  does  not 
bear  the  stamp  of  his  own  thinking.     He  continues,  however,  with  this  point  of 
view,  and  gradually  makes  it  his  own. 


38  EMERSON 

But  in  all  three  of  these  developments,  the  great  laws  of  nature  con 
tinue  their  sway,  and  thus  are  we  allied  at  every  stage  to  that  from  which 
we  came.  "The  next  lesson  taught  is  the  continuation  of  the  inflexible 
law  of  matter  into  the  subtile  kingdom  of  will  and  thought.  ...  It  is  a 
short  sight  to  limit  our  faith  in  laws  to  those  of  gravity,  of  chemistry,  of 
botany,  and  so  forth.  Those  laws  do  not  stop  where  our  eyes  lose  sight 
of  them"  (VI,  209). 

These  physical  laws  whictL extend  their  sway  "into  the  subtile  king 
dom  of  will  and  thought"  must  be,  of  course,  in  their  last  analysis,  the 
laws  of  spirit,  and  hence  must  be  essentially  moral.  \At  the  centre  of 
being  is  that  "moral  force"  of  which  "all  force  is  the  shadow  or  symbol" 
(III,  in).  In  saying  that  Discipline  may  be  the  Final  Cause  of  the  Uni 
verse,  Emerson  states  this  principle  at  the  outset.  From  "Commodity" 
(that  a  man  may  be  fed  and  in  consequence  that  he  may  work) — to 
_jB£auty  ("a  nobler  want  of  man") — to iauguage  (nature  "the  symbol  of 
spirit") — to  Discipline,  both  of  the  Understanding  and  of  the  Reason 
(by  which  "the  world  becomes  at  last  only  a  realized  will"  and  all  things 
become  moral  and  "in  their  boundless  changes  have  an  unceasing  refer 
ence  to  spiritual  nature" — Emerson  traces  the  uses  of  nature  in  that  first 
wonderful  rhapsody  which  announced  the  whole  gospel  of  Transcendent 
alism.  The  uses  of  nature  are  ultimately  moral  because  they  culminate 
in  this  spiritual  instruction  of  man,  and  "the  secret  of  the  illusoriness  is 
the  necessity  of  a  succession  of  moods  or  objects"  (III,  58).  "The^m^ral^ 
law  lies  at  the  centre  of  nature  and  radiates  to  the  circumference.  It  is 
the  pith  and  marrow  of  every  substance,  every  relation,  and  every  pro 
cess"  (I,  47).  That  "the  laws  of  nature  are  laws  <of  mind"  is  then  a  dual 
-••-fact  ,\  first,  because  spirit  is. the  source  from  which  nature  and  its  laws 
originally  proceeded,  l<md,  second,  because  the  evolution  of  Nature  back 
to  spirit  produces  in  its  progress  the  individual  human  minds.  That  man, 
is  the  "result  and  interpreter  of  nature"  means  that  he  is  the  result  .oL 
^this  great  process,  and  the  interpreter  of  it  as  nature.  To  staiej^ese 
laws  in  order  would  give  us  then  the  main  points  of  Emerson's  philos 
ophy.  He  himself  does  not  enumerate  them,  but  they  might  be  arranged 
somewhat  in  this  order : 

The  first  is  the  law  of  Permanence,  by  which  we  see  that  nature  is 
jiot  accidental,  but  a  regular  and  orderly  system,  having  its  series  of  in 
violable  laws. 

The  second  is  the  law^pf  Cn^^pQ^id^.r.f  which  shows  that  the  laws 
of  Nature  are  really  laws  ^oTspintTTrrat  is,  of  the  individual  mind. 

The  third  is  Universality,  by  which  we  know  that  the  laws  of  my 
spirit  are  no  other  than  the  laws  of  all  spirit,  and  that  therefore  I  am 


NATURE,  THE  OVER-SOUL,  AND  THE   INDIVIDUAL  39 

part  of  "the  great,  the  universal  mind,"  which  is  "common  to  all  men"  and 
which  "constitutes  them  men." 

The  fourth,  is  Pragr&ss,  which  means  that  man  is  the  "result"  as  well 
as  the  "interpreter"  of  nature.  Here  the  individual  emerges,  asserting 
his  claim  to  independence  :  and  he  does  so  by  "losing  hold"  of  this  cen- 
trality.  He  evolves  on  a  tangent,  so  to  speak,  and  knows  nature  from 
wrhich  he  came,  but  not  God,  who  caused  it.  i 

And  last  there  is  the..  Mora/  Law,  which  underlies  all  these,  and 
which  shows  that  after  all  .it  is  God  at  work,  who  must  educate  man 
^through  freedom.  By  this  law,  all  nature  exists  for  the  education  or 
"discipline"  of  man.  Finally  he  returns,  through  self-surrender,  to  the 
great  spirit  from  which  he  deviated. 


40  EMERSON 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  EMERSON   (continued)  :    THE  THEORIES  OF  EVO 
LUTION  AND  EMANATION. 

In  spite  of  the  patronizing  tolerance  in  which  it  is  usually  held,  the 
course  of  Emerson's  thought,  as  we  have  just  outlined  it,  would  seem  to 
one  studying  it  sympathetically  a  fairly  adequate  putting  together  of 
various  phases  of  Idealism,  and  a  reasonably  consistent  reading  of  them 
as  the  main  elements  of  a  connected  philosophy,  if  it  were  not  for  the 
central  contradiction  which  has  been  reserved  for  discussion  in  this  chap 
ter.  This  seems  a  modest  claim  enough  to  make  for  it;  for  the  contra 
diction  is  as  fatal  as  one  could  very  well  be.  Let  us  state  once  more,  in 
Emerson's  own  words,  this  fundamental  difficulty,  and  then  proceed  at 
once  to  his  answer.  "In  the  divine  order,  Intellect  is  primary,  Nature 
secondary;  it  is  the  memory  of  the  mind.  That  which  once  existed  in 
the  intellect  as  pure  law  has  now  taken  body  as  Nature"  (I,  188).  But 
Nature  "will  not  remain  orbed  in  a  thought,  but  rushes  into  persons" 
(III,  225),  and  "When  we  break  the  laws,  we  lose  our  hold  on  the  cen 
tral  reality"  (VI,  305).  The  question  is  at  once  before  us:  How  does 
that  which  is  "never  a  cause  but  a  perpetual  effect"  produce  those  "per 
sons"  who  have  the  fatal  ability  to  lose  hold  of  the  central  reality  ? 

One  who  reads  Emerson  with  the  least  care  can  hardly  fail  to  notice 
that  this  contradiction,  like  so  many  others  in  the  history  of  philosophy, 
is  due  primarily  to  a  careless  and  inconsistent  use  of  terms.  We  must 
therefore  pause  at  the  very  outset  to  make  a  fundamental  distinction  in 
Emerson's  use  of  the  term  "Nature." 

In  the  introduction  to  his  little  book  on  Nature  Emerson  says :  "I 
shall  use  the  word  in  both  senses ; — in  its  common  and  in  its  philosophical 
import.  In  inquiries  so  general  as  the  present  one,  the  inaccuracy  is  not 
material;  no  confusion  of  thought  will  occur"  (I,  n).  In  the  "philo 
sophical"  sense  Emerson  considers  Nature  as  meaning  "all  that  is  sep 
arate  from  us,  all  which  Philosophy  distinguishes  as  the  Not  Me, — all 
other  men  and  my  own  body,"  but  he  still  means  to  distinguish  it  from 
Soul.  But  while  he  does  distinguish  it  from  the  individual  soul  which 
interprets  this  great  reality  as  nature,  he  is  not  always  careful  to  dis 
tinguish  between  this  interpretation  of  ours,  and  the  great  unknown 
reality  of  which  it  is  the  interpretation;  and  so,  in  one  breath  he  may 


THEORIES  OF  EVOLUTION  AND  EMANATION  41 

speak  of  Nature  as  illusion,  phenomenon,  a  "perpetual  effect,"  whose  laws 
are  therefore  wholly  dependent  on  the  laws  of  mind,  and  in  the  next 
moment,  by  a  simple  metonymy,  he  may  continue  to  speak  of  "Nature" 
while  he  is  clearly  referring  to  the  cause  behind  it.80 

The  confusion  in  Emerson's  mind  seems  to  have  arisen  from 
his  endeavor  to  equate  an  inherited  idealism,  to  which  his  adherence  was 
largely  emotional,  with  a  theory  of  evolution  which  more  and  more 
forced  itself  upon  him  in  his  attempt  to  take  account  of  an  individual 
whose  impulses  proceed  from  within  himself.  Though  he  never  wholly 
relinquished  his  belief  that  "nature  proceeds  from  above,"  a  growing  be 
lief  in  evolution  may  be  traced  throughout  his  work, — a  belief  so  hostile 
to  his  earlier  idealism  that  it  finally  forced  him  unconsciously  to  himself 
completely  away  from  his  earlier  position.  Let  us  trace  briefly  the 
growth  of  Emerson's  belief  in  evolution,  and  see  how  it  affected  his 
answer  to  the  problem  of  how  a  real  individual  may  exist  in  a  world  of 
universal  spirit.  For  it  is  his  answer  to  this  problem,  which  even  Hegel 
sought  in  vain  to  solve,  which  gives  to  Emerson  his  real  significance. 

In  his  book,  Nature^Jin 1836, — in  spite  of  the  many  times  that  the 
claim  has  been  made  for  it, — there  is  no  suggestion  of  evolution  beyond 
a  "somewhat  progressive*' ;  nature  is  merely  a  "symbol"  or  "shadow"  of 
spirit^  a  remoter  and  inferior  incarnation  of  God,  because  an  incarnation 
"in  the  unconscious" ;  it  is  nothing  of  itself,  and  does  not  work  back  to 
higher  things;  "a  fact  is  merely  the  end  or  last  issue  of  spirit"  (I,  40). 
The  famous  verse  ending, 

"And  striving  to  be  man,  the  worm 
Mounts  through  all  the  spires  of  form," 

prefixed  to  the  essay  as  we  now  have  it,  did  not  appear  till  the  second 
edition,  in  1849;  ^ie  motto  which  was  prefixed  to  the  edition  of  1836 
was  from  Plotinus,  and  merely  to  the  effect  that  "Nature  is  but  an  image 
or  imitation  of  wisdom," — a  more  appropriate  text  for  the  book  which 
follows.  In  this  earliest  work  of  Emerson's  there  is  suggested  by  the 
fields  and  woods  only  "an  occult  relation  between  man  and  the  vegetable" 
(I,  16)  ;  his  later  problem  is,  How  is  this  occult  relation  to  be  accounted 
for? 

It  is  on  account  of  a  certain  instinctive  anticipation  of  his  later 
thinking,  however,  that  Emerson,  in  Nature,  is  not  wholly  satisfied  with 
Idealism  as  he  finds  it.  It  answers  the  question  "What  is  matter?"  but 

80  It  would  have  been  a  great  gain  to  clearness  if  Emerson  had  capitalized  the 
word  "Nature"  when  he  meant  to  use  it  in  this  latter  sense;  but  his  use  of  cap 
itals  is  wholly  indiscriminate,  not  only  as  regards  the  word  "Nature,"  but  even  in 
his  use  of  the  words  "Spirit,"  "Soul,"  and  "Mind." 


42  EMERSON 

not  ''Whence  is  it?"  nor  "Whereto?"  (I,  66).  "This  theory  makes  na 
ture  foreign  to  me,  and  does  not  account  for  that  consanguinity  which 
we  acknowledge  to  it" ;  he  would  leave  it,  therefore,  "merely  as  a  useful 
introductory  hypothesis,  serving  to  apprise  us  of  the  eternal  distinction 
between  the  soul  and  the  world"  (I,  67). 

We  may  fairly  say,  then,  that  Nature  marks  the  first  stage  of  Emer 
son's  thinking,  in  which  the  individual  is  "part  and  parcel  of  God,"  God 
is  pure  spirit  in  the  real  sense  of  the  term,  having  a  definite  purpose  and 
hence  a  certain  infinite  intelligence  and  will,  and  the  world,  so  far  as  we 
are  concerned,  is  an  illusion  which  God  is  using  for  the  education  of 
those  individuals  who  after  all  are  not  individuals  at  all. 

The  assertion  of  the  claims  of  the  individual  self  against  this  over 
powering  reality  was  a  necessity  of  Emerson's  New  England  training,  as 
it  was  of  all  western  civilization.  In  philosophy,  Emerson  undoubtedly 
found  it  first  in  Plato.  But  it  was  almost  immediately  after  his  publish 
ing  of  Nature,  that  is,  toward  the  close  of  the  year  1836,  that  he  seems 
to  have  come  under  the  influence  of  Lamarck,  and  we  find  his  first  ad 
vance  beyond  that  "occult  relation  between  animals  and  man"  which  he 
felt  as  early  as  1832  (Cabot,  vol.  II,  p.  710),  and  which  was  as  far  as  he 
had  gone  up  to  this  time.  I  quote  from  Emerson's  lecture  on  "The 
Humanity  of  Science,"  abstracted  "as  nearly  as  possible  in  his  own 
words,"  by  Mr.  Cabot : 

"Lamarck  finds  a  monad  of  organic  life  common  to  every  animal, 
and  becoming  a  worm,  a  mastiff,  or  a  man,  according  to  circumstances.. 
He  says  to  the  caterpillar,  How  dost  thou,  brother?  Please  God,  you 
shall  yet  be  a  philosopher.  And  the  instinct  finds  no  obstacle  in  the  ob 
jects.  .  .  .  Step  by  step  we  are  apprised  of  another  fact,  namely,  the 
humanity  of  that  spirit  in  which  Nature  works ;  that  all  proceeds  from  a 
mind  congenial  with  ours."  (A  Memoir  of  Ralph  IV aid o  Emerson,  vol. 

n,  P.  725.) 

But  we  must  know  nature  in  its  very  essence,  or  else  there  is  some 
thing  in  the  universe  essentially  apart  from  us.  So  Emersoa's~Ji£xlj5tep 
is  the  establishment  of  the  actuality  of  the  kinship  of  man  to  external 
nature.  Again  I  quote  from  Mr.  Cabot's  careful  analysis,  and  this  time 
from  the  lectures  on  "Human  Culture"  given  during  the  following  win 
ter  (1837-38): 

"Man  drinks  of  that  nature  whose  property  it  is  to  be  Cause.  With 
the  first  surge  of  that  ocean  he  affirms,  /  am.  Only  Cause  can  say  I. 
But  as  soon  as  he  has  uttered  this  word  he  transfers  this  me  from  that 
which  it  really  is  to  the  frontier  region  of  effects,  to  his  body  and  its  ap 
purtenances,  to  place  and  time.  Yet  is  he  continually  wooed  to  abstract 
himself  from  effects  and  dwell  with  causes:  to  ascend  into  the  region  of 
law.  Few  men  enter  it,  but  all  men  belong  there"  (Ib.,  vol.  II,  p.  734). 


THEORIES  OF  EVOLUTION   AND  EMANATION  43 

This  is  the  most  impossible  of  compromises,  and  some  sort  of  ex 
planation  was  an  immediate  necessity.  Man  cannot  "belong"  in  one  kind 
of  existence  and  "be"  in  another.  And  so  Emerson  makes  the  distinction 
the  following  year  that  "man  is  related  by  his  form  to  the  world  about 
.him; by  his  jsqul  to  the  universe, — passing  through  what  a  scale,  from 
reptile  sympathies  to  enthusiasm  and  ecstasy"  (Ib.,  p.  737).  This  is  cer 
tainly  not  explanation,  for  it  leaves  jin  impossible  dualism  in  the  nature 
..of  man. 

Emerson  does  little  to  solve  this  difficulty  in  his  next  series  (1839- 
40)  :  "Nothing  but  God  is  self-dependent.  Man  is  powerful  only  by  the 
multitude  of  his  affinities.  Our  being  is  a  reproduction  of  all  the  past. 
.  .  .  The  great  Cause  is  alive,  is  life  itself"  (Ib.,  p.  743).  But  this  Hegel 
ian  attitude  of  mind  was  out  of  Emerson's  range,  and  he  falls  back  with 
a  certain  sense  of  security,  as  he  does  all  through  his  life,  on  his  older 
and  surer  "intuitions" ;  "What  are  we  all  but  the  instant  manifestation  of 
the  Divine  energy  ?  .  .  .  A  man  is  not  a  man  who  does  not  yet  draw  on 
the  universal  and  eternal  soul"  (Ib.,  p.  746). 

This  brings  us  to  the  year  1841,  in  which  appeared  the  remarkable 
address  on  the  "Method  of  Nature,"  and  the  First  Series  of  the  Essays, 
in  which  are  contained  some  of  Emerson's  most  final  suggestions  of 
theory;  so  that  we  may  consider  from  this  point  on,  in  what  form  the 
problem  nowr  appealed  to  him,  and  what  was  the  logical  if  not  the  chron 
ological  development  of  his  answer.81 

By  idealism  pure  and  simple,  as  the  dilemma  now  appeared  to  the 
mind  of  Emerson,  we  must  remain  mere  "ideas,"  whereas  if  we  were  a 

81  The  Journals  give  us  little  to  add  and  nothing  to  subtract  from  this  state 
ment  of  the  development  of  Emerson's  thinking  through  these  critical  years.  The 
very  language  of  the  lectures  may  be  found  under  dates  closely  corresponding,  and 
I  find  nothing  of  real  signiikance  which  is  not  stated  or  implied  in  the  lectures. 
In  1836  Emerson  is  saying.  "Man  is  the  point  wherein  matter  and  spirit  meet  and 
marry"  (Journals,  IV,  p.  78).  He  is  of  course  more  natural  and  explicit  in 
wrestling  with  his  problem  in  the  soliloquy  of  the  Journal  than  in  his  public  ut 
terances,  though  no  more  sincere  and  direct.  In  the  Journal  from  which  I  have 
just  quoted  he  writes  (page  247)  :  "I  see  my  being  imbedded  in  Universal  Mind. 
...  I  believe  in  Unity  but  behold  two."  It  is  thus  that  the  problem  appeared  to 
him  before  the  principle  of  evolution  became  a  vital  thing  with  him.  He  feels  a 
"sympathy  with  nature"  but  finds  "little  access/'  At  certain  moments  he  knows 
that  he  exists  "directly  from  God,"  and  then  he  becomes  "a  surprised  spectator"; 
and  he  asks  pathetically,  "Can't  I  see  the  universe  without  a  contradiction?"  Next 
he  finds  that  beasts  are  "wholly  immersed  in  the  apparent,"  that  a  "common  soul 
broods  over  them,  they  are  never  individual  as  man  is"  (Journals,  IV,  p.  381). 
Beyond  this  evidence  that  Emerson  was  reasoning  and  not  simply  grappling  with 
mystical  intuitions,  the  Journals  for  the  years  1836-1841  give  us  nothing  that  need 
detain  us. 


44  EMERSON 

product  of  the  evolving  reality  itself  the  unity  of  this  great  reality  would 
be  imperiled.  Was  there  any  compromise  possible?  Could  there  be  any 
bridge  between  these  two  positions  ? 

The  first  reconciliation  which  presented  itself  was  the  Emanation 
theory  as  he  found  it  in  Neo-Platonism.  But  on  this  he  was  forced  to 
put  a  highly  spiritualistic  interpretation  of  his  own.  For  Emerson  was 
still  striving  to  hold  to  the  spiritual  actuality  of  the  source  of  things  and 
to  a  certain  independent  finality  in  the  individuals  produced  by  this 
eternal  process.  Naturally  he  could  find  in  Plotinus  little  encouragement 
beyond  the  mere  idea  of  a  perpetual  emanation  and  return.  But  would 
it  not  be  a  sufficient  account  alike  of  the  individual  and  the  universal,  if 
the  world  were  conceived  as  an  efflux  of  spirit,  which,  embodied  for  a 
time  as  nature,  finally  works  back  to  spirit  again?  Emerson's  statement 
of  this  is  of  course  highly  symbolic : 

"It  is  a  steep  stair  down  from  the  essence  of  Intellect  pure  to 
thoughts  and  intellections.  As  the  sun  is  conceived  to  have  made  our 
system  by  hurling  out  from  itself  the  outer  rings  of  diffuse  ether  which 
slowly  condensed  into  earths  and  moons,  by  a  higher  force  of  the  same 
law  the  mind  detaches  minds,  and  a  mind  detaches  thoughts  or  intellec 
tions.  These  again  all  mimic  in  their  sphericity  the  first  mind,  and  share 
its  power"  (XII,  16). 

Now  it  is  impossible  from  the  very  nature  of  things  that  these 
"emanations,"  if  they  are  of  the  same  nature  as  God,  could  ever  become 
"detached."  Indeed,  the  very  word  "detach"  is  meaningless  when  ap 
plied  to  mind.  Furthermore,  if  these  minds  are  like  the  original  mind 
and  "share  its  power,"  they  should  be  able  to  give  to  their  "thoughts  or 
intellections"  another  independent  existence,  which  it  is  obvious  we  can 
not  do ;  nor  would  we  speak  in  the  language  of  space  and  time  if  the 
original  mind  did  not.  ,I£we  are  of  the  same  nature  as  God,  we  cannot 
receive  the  impressions  he  gives  us  and  body  them  forth  as  a  physical 
universe,  unless  he  himself  does  so ;  and  what  becomes  of  Transcendent 
alism  if  space  and  time  are  the  same  to  God  as  they  seem  to  us? 

When  Emerson  says,  "Nature  is  the  incarnation  of  a  thought  and 
turns  to  thought  again"  (III,  187),  he  still  knows  very  well  that  a 
thought  cannot  be  incarnated ;  that  if  it  were  the  thought  of  anyone,  even 
of  God,  it  could  have  no  separate  existence,  could  by  no  means  evolve  or 
turn  to  anything.  We  cannot  conceive  of  God  as  sowing  ideas  and  reap 
ing  from  them  a  spiritual  substance.  If  nature  were  no  more  than  the 
thought  of  spirit,  we  would  be  likewise  no  more  than  parts  of  speech — 
so  many  nouns  in  the  grammar  of  God — and  our  subjective  independence 
would  be  as  hopelessly  lost  as  ever. 


THEORIES  OF  EVOLUTION  AND  EMANATION  45 

Time  and  again  Emerson's  Idealism  does  drive  him  to  confess  this 
very  point  of  view,  at  least  so  far  as  the  lower  orders  of  nature  are  con 
cerned.  Thus  he  says  boldly,  ''These  metals  and  animals  ...  are  words 
of  God  and  as  fugitive  as  other  words"  (II,  293).  But  while  it  is  well 
enough  to  say  that  all  the  rest  of  creation  is  the  thinking  of  God,  Emer 
son  cannot  seriously  consider  himself  as  the  mere  thought  of  some  Being. 
How  could  he  become  so  far  separate  from  the  Eternal  One  as  to  put 
an  interpretation  upon  him  or  upon  his  other  "ideas"?  This  drives  him 
to  the  impossible  explanation : 

"Whilst  we  converse  with  truths  as  thoughts,  they  exist  also  as 
plastic  forces;  as  the  soul  of  a  man,  the  soul  of  a  plant,  the  genius  or 
constitution  of  any  part  of  nature,  which  makes  it  what  it  is.  The 
thought  which  was  in  the  world,  part  and  parcel  of  the  world,  has  dis 
engaged  itself  and  taken  an  independent  existence"  (XII,  5). 

But  in  feeling  this  need  for  thoughts  which  are  more  than 
thoughts, — which  in  being  "plastic  forces"  are  not  thoughts  at  all, — 
Jimerson  was  driven  from  his  theory  of  emanation  to  a  theory  of  evolu 
tion  which  precluded  the  emanation  idea.  Upon  this.he,  w.as  still  able  to 
piut  a  thoroughly  idealistic  interpretation ;  but  that  his  gradual  formation 
and  acceptance  of  this  theory  did  modify  the  type  of  idealism  with  which 
he  started,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  In  his  first  book,  Nature,  in  1836, 
E^rnerson  feels  that  the  evidence  of  our  own  being  is  "perfect"  but  that 
the  world  "is  a  divine  dream,  from  which  we  may  presently  awake  to  the 
glories  and  certainties  of  day"  (I,  66)  ;  in  the  essay  on  "Illusions,"  pub 
lished  in  the  Conduct  of  Life,  in  1860,  he  speaks  of  our  pretension  of 
selfhood  as  "fading  with  the  rest,"  and  finds  "that  in  the  endless  striving 
and  ascents,  the  metamorphosis  is  entire"  (VI,  303  ).  This  is  the  main 
change, — from  a  purely  idealistic  interpretation  of  the  world  as  illu 
sion  to  an  attempt  to  account  for  the  presence  of  the  individual  by  an 
evolution  where  "the  metamorphosis  is  entire." 

Much  has  been  said  of  Emerson's  belief  in  evolution,  as  being  an  an 
ticipation  of  the  work  of  Darwin.  Nothing  could  be  further  from  the 
obvious  facts  than  this.  Except  that  he  stood  nearer  to  the  day  of  scien 
tific  demonstration  and  had  in  consequence  a  slight  leaning  at  times 
toward  the  scientific  manner,  there  is  nothing  in  Emerson  which  advances 
beyond  the  conclusions  reached  by  Herder, — not  to,  remark  again  that 
the  belief  in  evolution  is  as  old  as  recorded  thought.82  Though  he  prob 
ably  had  not  read  the  writings  of  Herder  or  Oken,  Emerson  had  some 

82  'The  waters  contained  a  germ  from  which  everything  else  sprang  forth" 
says  the  Rig- Veda,  and  with  many  such  suggestions  as  this  Emerson  was  un 
questionably  familiar. 


\ 


46  EMERSON 

preparation  for  the  reception  of  ideas  similar  to  theirs.83  But  no  direct 
influence  or  indebtedness  is  necessary  here.  Such  ideas  as  these  are 
always  in  the  air  for  some  time  before  the  actual  Darwin  verifies  them, 
and  as  Emerson  himself  remarks,  the  poet  is  always  the  first  to  feel 
them,  though  any  man  might  easily  anticipate  the  discovery.  "Because 
the  history  of  nature  is  charactered  in  his  brain,  therefore  is  he  the 
prophet  and  discoverer  of  her  secrets.  Every  known  fact  in  natural 
science  was  divined  by  the  presentiment  of  somebody,  before  it  was 
actually  verified"  (III,  176).  ^merson's  .remained  .SL.poetic  or  at  best  a 
purely  metaphysical  anticipation  of  the  fact  of  evolution,  and  so  he  stands 
wholly  apart  from  all  that  constitutes  the  real  significance  of  Darwin. 
Even  after  the  theory  had  been  established,  it  is  in  the  same  attitude  that 
he  looks  back  upon  it.  "Science  was  false  by  being  unpoetical.  It  as 
sumed  to  explain  a  reptile  or  mollusk,  and  isolated  it, — which  is  hunting 
for  life  in  graveyards.  Reptile  or  mollusk  or  man  or  angel  only  exist  in 
system,  in  relation.  The  metaphysician,  the  poet,  only  sees  each  animal 
form  as  an  inevitable  step  in  the  path  of  the  creating  mind"  (VIII,  15). 

83  See  Dr.   Edward  Waldo  Emerson's  Biographical  Sketch  in  the  Centenary 
Edition  (vol.  I,  pp.  xxvi-xxx). 


IDENTITY  OF  SUBJECT  AND  OBJECT  47 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  EMERSON  (continued)  :  THE  IDENTITY  OF  SUBJECT 

AND  OBJECT. 

It  would  seem  that  in  accepting  the  doctrine  of  evolution  Emerson 
would  scarcely  have  been  able  to  remain  a  mystic ;  and  indeed  it  is  often 
said  that  he  wrote  sometimes  as  a  mystic  and  sometimes  not.  I  think 
this  is  a  mistake.  In  the  fundamental  principles  of  mysticism  he  never 
wavered.84  However  much  he  wrestled  with  his  problem,  and  arrived 
stage  by  stage  at  his  conclusions  through  definite  processes  of  the  "un 
derstanding,"  he  still  felt  a  religious  exaltation  in  the  moments  of  his 
deepest  insights,  and  this  kept  him  firm  in  his  belief  in  intuition  and  hence 
in  the  first-hand  or  original  character  of  his  perceptions.  "When  we  are 
exalted  by  ideas,"  he  says  boldly,  "we  do  not  owe  this  to  Plato,  but  to 
the  idea,  to  which  also  Plato  was  debter"  (IV,  24). 85  In  like  manner, 
however  much  Emerson  may  have  been  led  either  directly  or  through 
Coleridge  toward  the  "Identitats"  system  of  Schelling,  which  he  is  now 
about  to  offer  as  his  final  solution  of  the  central  problem  of  metaphysics, 
he  arrived  at  his  results  from  an  entirely  different  point  of  approach,  and 
it  is  this,  rather  than  the  actual  results  which  he  announces,  that  gives  to 
his  thinking  its  peculiar  interest  and  value.  "Do  not  teach  me  out  of 
Schelling,"  he  exclaims  in  his  Journal,  "and  I  shall  find  it  all  out  for  my 
self."  Let  us  see,  therefore,  by  what  process  Emerson  seems  to  have 
gone  forward  in  his  thinking  from  the  point  at  which  we  left  it  in  the 
last  chapter  to  the  "Identity"  theory  toward  which  he  was  constantly 
inclining. 

Omitting  the  starting-point  of  the  existence  of  spirit  before  its  ex 
pression  of  itself  as  nature,  since  this  expression  was  always  a  necessity  of 


84  To  state  the  four  propositions  of  mystical  faith  as  given  by  Mr.  Inge  in  his 
Christian  Mysticism   (pages  6,  7),  is  to  state  four  of  the  most  fundamental  tenets 
in  Emerson's  philosophy.     These  are:    (i)  The  soul  (as  well  as  the  body)  can  see 
and  perceive;     (2)    Man  in  order  to  know  God  must  be  a  partaker  of  the  divine 
nature;     (3)    "Without  holiness  no  man  may  see  the  Lord";    and    (4)    The  true 
hierophant  of  the  mysteries  of  God,  is  love.     Besides  these  there  are  many  minor 
tenets   in   Mysticism   as   Mr.    Inge   explains   it   which   are   fundamental   facts   with 
Emerson,  as  that  "Evil  has  no  separate  existence"  (page  25). 

85  Mysticism  has  no  genealogy,"  says  Vaughan  in  his  Hours  with  the  Mystics, 
but  "grows  spontaneously  in  a  certain  temperament  of  mind." 


48  EMERSON 

its  existence  and  could  never  have  had  an  actual  beginning  in  time,  we  have 
a  logical  priority  which  does  not  interfere  with  an  ontological  explanation 
more  in  accord  with  the  obvious  facts  of  the  great  evolution.  Wejiave 
the  universal  spirit  as  a  developing  or  evolving  reality,  whose  expression 
of.  itself  in  the  successive  states  a,  b,  c,  we  interpret  as  inorgaoic_|natter, 
the  plant  creation,  the  animal  creation;  we  have  no  longer  a  mere  Being, 
self-sufficient  and  passive,  whose  "thoughts"  take  body  as  nature  and 
then  of  their  own  initiative  turn  to  thought  again.  This  becomes  at  once 
a  mere  figure  of  speech  by  which  the  priority  of  mind  stands  only  for 
the  reality  of  spirit ;  and  nature,  in  being  the  perpetual  and  neccessary 
and  to  us  explanatory  effect,  is  no  more  than  our  interpretation  of  the 
very  essence  of  spirit.  To  know  the  Universal  spirit,  therefore,  we  must 
study  nature  in  its  long  progress  from  inorganic  matter  up  to  man ;  and 
thus  we  shall  be  able  to  write,  at  least  in  part,  a  "Natural  History  of  In 
tellect."  This  is  what  Emerson  means  when  he  says,  "I  believe  in  the 
existence  of  the  material  world  as  the  expression  of  .the  spiritual  or 
real,  and  in  the  impenetrable  mystery  which  hides  (and  hides  through  ab 
solute  transparency)  the  mental  nature,  I  await  the  insight  which  our  ad 
vancing  knowledge  of  material  laws  shall  furnish"  (XII,  5  ;  and  X,  74). 86 
Nature,  as  we  come  to  know  it  in  our  study  of  Geology,  is  a  "man 
ifestation  of  God  in  the  unconscious,"  or,  as  we  must  now  interpret  it,  a 
manifestation  of  God  Jb.efo^e  he  attained  to  consciousness.  But  in  his 
very  nature,  in  the  atoms,  so  to  speak,  of  his  original  existence  was  an 
"outward  impulse"  (to  borrow  the  word  of  Alexander  Bain), — a  "desire" 
to  be  other,— and  of  this  desire  in  its  constant  realization,  all  nature  and 
all  human  history  is  the  continuous  record. 

"We  can  point  nowhere  to  anything  final,  but  tendency  appears  on 
all  hands;  planet,  system,  constellation,  total  nature  is  growing  like  a 
field  of  maize  in  July;  ts  becoming  somewhat  else;  is  in  rapid  metamor 
phosis.  The  embryo  does  not  more  sfrive  to  be  man,  than  yonder  burr 
of  light  we  call  a  nebula  tends  to  be  a  ring,  a  comet,  a  globe,  and  parent 
of  new  stars"  (I,  194). 

But  having  made,  in  his  own  mind,  a  start  in  this  direction,  it  seems 
to  me  that  Emerson  felt  a  great  danger  ahead  of  him.  If  consciousness 
was  after  all  only  a  late  step  in  the  evolution  of  God,  what  is  to  save  us 
from  the  terrible  clutches  of  Materialism? — for  until  God  attained  to  con 
sciousness,  he  could  not  be  Spirit  at  all  in  any  proper  sense  of  the  term. 
I  think  this  half-realized  dread  is  the  psychological  explanation  of  Emer 
son's  constant  insistence  upon  his  extreme  statements  of  Idealism  even 

86  The  statement  is  identical  in  both  passages. 


IDENTITY  OF  SUBJECT  AND  OBJECT  49 

after  he  had  attained  his  later  position.  Though  he  claims  to  have  no 
fear  of  this  frightful  word  (II,  285),  yet  it  alone  causes  him  to  lose  con 
trol  of  himself.  "The  physicians  say  they  are  not  materialists ;  but  they 
are : — Spirit  is  matter  reduced  to  an  extreme  thinness :  O  so  thin ! —  ... 
I  see  not.  if  one  be  once  caught  in  this  trap  of  so-called  sciences, 
any  escape  for  the  man  from  the  links  of  the  chain  of  physical  necessity. 
Given  such  an  embryo,  such  a  history  must  follow.  On  this  platform  one 
lives  in  a  sty  of  sensualism,  and  would  soon  come  to  suicide"  (III,  56, 
57).  This  is  strangely  unlike  Emerson's  usual  calm  tone. 

But  our  being  caught  in  the  chain  of  physical  necessity  results  ''from 
looking  too  much  at  one  condition  of  nature,  namely  Motion"  (III,  186). 
"The  astronomers  said,  'Give  us  matter  and  a  little  motion  and  we  will 
construct  the  universe.  It  is  not  enough  that  we  should  have  matter,  we 
must  also  have  a  single  impulse,  one  shove  to  launch  the  mass  and  gener 
ate  the  harmony  of  the  centrifugal  and  centripetal  forces.'  .  .  .  Nature, 
meanwhile,  had  .  .  .  bestowed  the  impulse  and  the  balls  rolled.  .  .  . 
That  famous  aboriginal  push  propagates  itself  through  all  the  balls  of 
the  systems  and  through  every  atom  of  every  ball :  through  all  the  races 
of  creatures,  and  through  the  history  and  performances  of  every  indi 
vidual"  (III,  176,  177). 

Yet  in  attributing  this  impulse  to  the  "primordial  atom"  Emerson 
himself  reads  almost  like  a  materialist ;  when  he  speaks  of  "the  genetical 
atom  of  which  both  [plants  and  animals]  are  composed"  (XII,  212),  it 
is  hard  to  remember  what  a  visionary  dreamer  he  was.  But  in  his  very 
use  of  the  word  "atoms"  Emerson  is  only  trying  to  make  us  feel  the  ab 
solute  necessity  and  completeness  of  spirit's  expression  of  itself  in  the 
guise  of  nature, — the  actual  identity  of  the  two.  "The  next  step  in  the 
series  is  the  equivalence  of  the  soul  to  nature"  (VIII,  209).  It  is  there 
fore  only  two  instances  of  the  same  law  that  "atom  draws  to  atom 
throughout  nature,  and  truth  to  truth  throughout  spirit"  (VIII,  211), 
since  "There  is  a  kind  of  latent  omniscience  not  only  in  every  man  but  in 
every  particle"  (X,  177)  ;  or  as  he  puts  it  in  the  verse  introductory  to  his 
last  essay  on  Nature, 

"Self-kindled  every  atom  glows"   (III,   161). 

The  atom  which  is  "self-kindled"  is  a  spiritual  being;  or  at  least,  to  Emer 
son  it  seemed  so.86a 

Since  spirit  is  not  to  be  separated  from  its  expression  of  itself  as 

86a  Too  little  has  been  made  of  Emerson's  obvious  sympathy  with  and  indebt 
edness  to  Leibnitz.  The  strong  individualism  of  this  philosopher  offered  the  same 
comfort  to  Emerson  that  it  did  to  Schleiermacher ;  but  the  American's  greater 
love  of  freedom  led  him  much  further  in  this  direction. 


50  EMERSON 

nature,  this  expression  must  be  not  only  complete  but  perpetual.  "We 
can  never  surprise  nature  in  a  corner;  never  find  the  end  of  a  thread; 
never  tell  where  to  set  the  first  stone.  The  bird  hastens  to  lay  her  egg; 
the  egg  hastens  to  be  a  bird.  The  wholeness  we  admire  in  the  order  of 
the  world  is  the  result  of  infinite  distribution  ...  its  permanence  is  per 
petual  inchoation.  Every  natural  fact  is  an  emanation,  and  that  from 
which  it  emanates  is  an  emanation  also,  and  from  every  emanation  is 
a  new  emanation."  And  then  follows  the  important  first  step  in  the  great 
evolution :  "In  all  animal  and  vegetable  forms,  the  physiologist  concedes 
that  no  chemistry,  no  mechanics,  can  account  for  the  facts,  but  a  mys 
terious  principle  of  life  must  be  assumed,  which  not  only  inhabits  the  or 
gan  but  makes  the  organ"  (I,  190). 

The  significance  of  this  passage  for  a  correct  understanding  of 
Emerson's  thought  is  far-reaching.  If  the  evolution  of  inorganic  nature 
into  man  is  a  real  evolution,  there  must  creep  in  no  dualism,  no  parallel 
ism,  between  nature  and  mind.  We  find  certain  parts  of  inorganic  nature 
suddenly  and  inexplicably  equipped  with  a  new  principle — life.  In  like 
manner  we  must  consider  consciousness.  With  Emerson  there  is  no  more 
of  a  dualism  between  mind  and  matter  than  there  is  between  life  and  mat 
ter;  each  is  a  new  principle,  a  new  step  in  the  evolution  of  the  spiritual 
substance. 

"It  is  a  long  way  from  granite  to  the  oyster;  farther  yet  to  Plato 
and  the  preaching  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  Yet  all  must  come,  as 
surely  as  the  first  atom  has  two  sides.  ...  A  little  water  made  to  rotate 
in  a  cup  explains  the  formation  of  the  simpler  shells ;  the  addition  of 
matter  from  year  to  year  arrives  at  last  at  the  most  complex  forms ;  and 
yet  so  poor  is  nature  with  all  her  craft,  that  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  the  universe  she  has  but  one  stuff, — but  one  stuff  with  its  two 
ends,  to  serve  up  all  her  dream-like  variety.  Compound  it  how  she  will, 
star,  sand,  fire,  water,  tree,  man,  it  is  still  one  stuff,  and  betrays  the  same 
properties"  (III,  173,  174). 

There  is,  then,  no  creation  of  anything  really  new, — no  transcend 
ence  of  the  laws  of  inorganic  nature  by  the  laws  of  life,  or  of  conscious 
ness,  or  of  will.  "Nature  is  always  consistent,  though  she  feigns  to  con 
travene  her  own  laws.  She  keeps  her  laws,  and  seems  to  transcend  them" 
(Ib.).  "Intellect  and  morals  appear  only  the  material  forces  on  a  higher 
plane.  The  laws  of  material  nature  run  up  into  the  invisible  world  of  the 
mind"  (X,  74). 

In  being  compelled  to  postulate  "a  deeper  cause,  as  yet  far  from 
being  conscious"  (II,  72),  Emerson  was  certainly  relinquishing  the  pure 
idealism  with  which  he  started.  Yet  there  was  no  escape  for  him.  In 


IDENTITY  OF  SUBJECT  AND  OBJECT  51 

choosing  between  the  theories  of  emanation  and  of  evolution  he  was  re 
duced  to  a  choice  between  two  equally  unsatisfactory  alternatives:  that 
God,  as  a  conscious  spirit,  creates  a  world  of  appearance,  which  eternally 
works  back  into  real  being  again  :  or  that  God  is  impersonal,  the  very 
essence  of  things,  and  reaches  his  culmination  in  man.  The  first  of  these 
is  God  with  a  fictitious  universe,  the  freedom  of  the  individual  being  a 
part  of  the  illusion ;  the  second  is  a  world  with  a  fictitious  God. 

Of  course  neither  of  these  could  be  Emerson's  final  view  of  things. 
His  task  must  be  to  find  a  common  ground  alike  for  spirit  and  for  nature. 
The  great  reality  must  continue  to  be  spirit  in  its  very  essence  ;  but  if  it 
is  to  account  for  this  real  world  it  must  be  not  only  spirit  but  more  than 
soirit;  nature  must  be  as  real  an  expression  of  it  as  spirit  itself. 

And  this  leads  to  the  inevitable  result  of  trying  to  take  account  of 
both  truths  at  once,  of  "the  unity  of  cause  and  the  variety  of  appear 
ance"  ;  we  must  conclude  that  Spirit,  as  well  as  nature,  is  essentially  an 
interpretation  of  our  own.  Just  as  we  are  driven  from  Materialism  by 
the  need  to  take  account  of  the  appearance  of  something  forever  different 
from  matter,  so  we  are  driven  from  the  deeper  but  still  inadequate  con 
ception  of  evolving  spirit,  in  order  to  give  any  reality  or  independence  to 
the  individual.  Aud  thus  is  Emerson  driven  to  his  final  theory  of  the 
identity  of  subject  and  object  in  ''a  substance  older  and  deeper  than  either 
mind  or  matter"  (VIII,  15). 

There  are  three  great  clangers  which  we  are  apt  to  fall  into  in  our 
attempt  to  define  the  nature  of  this  ultimate  reality :  we  may  make  of  it 
a  mere  logical  abstraction,  and  in  our  desire  not  to  deprive  nature  and 
spirit  of  their  mutual  relation  and  efficiency,  we  may  land  in  a  dualism 
with  only  a  theoretical  common  ground  of  being;  or  wishing  to  escape 
this  alternative  and  preserve  at  all  costs  the  unity  of  the  "Eternal  One," 
we  may  fall  into  a  worse  mistake  and  sink  both  world  and  spirit  in  this 
immovable,  overpowering  Reality;  or  finally,  hoping  to  avoid  both  of 
these  dangers,  wishing  to  gain  both  unity  and  potency  for  the  underlying 
substance  and  reality  for  both  nature  and  mind,  we  may  have  proposed 
only  a  tertium  quid,  which  is  no  solution  of  the  great  problem  at  all.  To 
translate  these  three  dangers  to  be  avoided  into  three  propositions  to  be 
established,  we  must  find  this  Reality  to  be  essentially  One,  yet  to  include 
in  itself  both  spirit  and  nature,  and  to  have  therefore  a  reality  as  great  as 
theirs  and  a  potency  as  effective  in  producing  a  world  of  actual  spirit  and 
of  actual  nature; — so  that  we  may  justly  call  this  substance,  according  to 
our  viewpoint,  the  "All-dissolving  Unity,"  the  "underlying  Reality,"  or 
the  ''Great  First  Cause." 

The  insistence  upon  unity  always  seems  at  first  to  be  bought  at  the  ex- 


52  EMERSON 

pense  of  reality.  Emerson  insists  constantly  upon  both  sides  of  the  great 
dilemma,  but  he  stands  before  the  real  problem  of  the  One  and  the  Many 
as  hopeless  as  every  greater  philosopher  since  the  mighty  Greeks.  But  that 
this  unity  is  an  eternal  fact  is  with  Emerson  perhaps  the  most  funda 
mental  of  all  truths.  "All  the  universe  over  there  is  but  one  thing,  this 
old  Two-Face,  creator-creature,  mind-matter,  right-wrong,  of  which  any 
proposition  may  be  affirmed  or  denied"  (III,  233).  But  no  supplying  of 
hyphens  can  give  a  real  unity  to  contradictory  elements, — nor  any  such 
echoes  of  past  philosophers  as  that  "Nature  is  one  thing  and  the  other 
thing  in  the  same  moment"  (III,  225),  or  that  "cause  and  effect  are  two 
sides  of  one  fact"  (II,  293).  But  Emerson  does  not  often  offend  in  this 
way.  The  unity  so  strongly  insisted  upon  is  an  "all-dissolving  unity" 
(VIII,  212)  ;  it  has  in  itself  the  very  essence  of  both  nature  and  spirit, 
for  "it  is  impossible  that  the  creative  power  should  exclude  itself"  (III, 
58).  So  while  it  is  a  higher  reality  than  spirit, — something  from  which 
this  narrow  and  restricted  personal  spirit  could  emanate, — it  is  not  less 
real  than  spirit,  indeed  does  not  cease  to  be  spirit ;  and  as  spirit  Emerson 
refers  to  it  immediately  after  saying  that  "in  our  more  correct  writings 
we  give  to  this  generalization  the  name  of  Being,  and  thereby  confess 
that  we  have  arrived  as  far  as  we  can  go"  (III,  75).  In  like  manner,  as 
the  unfolding  of  the  life  of  this  great  Reality  is  shown  in  the  evolution  of 
nature,  it  is  therefore  at  the  same  time  Nature  itself,  and  with  a  con 
sistency  which  seems  almost  perversity,  Emerson  calls  it  by  this  name 
even  while  insisting  upon  its  underlying  unity  and  ultimately  spiritual 
essence. 

We  see,  then,  that  this  search  after  unity,  which  is  the  "noble  rage" 
of  all  philosophers,  was  supplemented  in  Emerson  by  the  instincts  of  the 
man  of  sense  who  can  never  content  himself  with  an  ideal  unity  or  a 
metaphysical  system  perfect  in  logic  but  deficient  in  its  power  of  ultimate 
conviction.  Even  in  his  most  "transcendental"  stage,  in  his  book  on 
Nature,  he  sets  himself  the  philosophical  standard  which  he  never  deserts. 
"Whenever  a  true  theory  appears,  it  will  be  its  own  evidence.  Its  test 
is,  that  it  will  explain  all  phenomena"  (I,  10).  If  his  theory  of  identity 
is  to  be  of  any  service  to  Emerson,  it  must  be  because  this  Unity,  this 
Reality,  has  in  itself  the  power  to  produce  this  actual  world  of  mind  and 
matter, — its  unity  must  be  the  "unity  of  cause"  and  its  reality  must  ac 
count  for  the  "variety  of  appearance."  And  so  Emerson  at  last  considers' 
it.  It  is  "the  Efficient  Nature,  natura  naturans,  the  quick  cause  before 
which  all  forms  flee  as  the  driven  snow ;  itself  secret,  its  works  driven 
before  it  in  flocks  and  multitudes  .  .  .  arriving  at  consummate  results 
without  a  shock  or  leap"  (III,  172). 


IDENTITY  OF  SUBJECT  AND  OBJECT  53 

In  his  calmer  moments  this  figurative  language  disappears,  and 
Emerson  speaks  as  simply  as  he  can:  "Shall  we  describe  this  cause  as 
that  which  works  directly?"  (Ill,  75).  "The  great  and  cressive  self, 
rooted  in  absolute  nature,  supplants  all  relative  existence"  (III,  78).  But 
we  cannot  help  feeling,  as  he  does,  the  utter  inadequacy  of  all  this.  He 
seems  to  come  nearer  the  truth  when  he  speaks  in  symbols  ;  and  feeling 
this  himself,  it  is  notably  characteristic  of  him  that  he  at  once  attributes 
this  same  attitude  to  other  men.  With  a  most  innocent  lack  of  philo 
sophic  perspective,  he  remarks:  "The  baffled  intellect  must  still  kneel 
before  this  cause,  which  refuses  to  be  named, — ineffable  cause,  which  every 
fine  genius  has  essayed  to  represent  by  some  emphatic  symbol,  as  Thales 
by  water,  Anaximenes  by  air,  Anaxagoras  by  (Nous)  thought,  Zoroaster 
by  fire,  Jesus  and  the  moderns  by  love:  and  the  metaphor  of  each  has 
become  a  national  religion"  (III,  74). 

But  for  Emerson  himself  the  symbol  was  necessary  not  because  of 
the  uncertainty,  but  because  by  its  very  nature  the  ultimate  Reality  could 
not  be  adequately  expressed  in  any  other  way.  For  if  we  content  our 
selves  with  calling  it  such  names  as  Being  or  First  Cause  or  the  Eternal 
One  we  do  not  take  account  of  its  fulness  and  richness, — of  the  fact  that 
"that  central  life  is  superior  to  creation,"  that  "forever  it  labors  to  create 
a  life  and  thought  as  large  and  excellent  as  itself,  but  in  vain"  (II,  297). 
And  so  when  Emerson  calls  this  Reality  Spirit  or  Nature,  he  speaks  no 
less  symbolically  than  when  he  calls  it  Goodness  (II,  289),  or  Wisdom 
(III,  188),  or  by  any  other  name:  for  in  including  in  itself  all  of  these 
great  principles  it  cannot  be  adequately  called  by  the  name  of  any  one  of 
them.  We  are  reduced  to  the  language  which  suggests,  which  half  re 
veals,  but  which  never  really  betrays  its  meaning  to  the  understanding. 
W"e  would  fain  escape  this  dealing  with  what  is  other  than  we  in  terms  of 
ourselves, — but  how  can  we?  How  can  we  picture  spaceless  objects  or 
conceive  of  timeless  events  ?  Xo  more  can  the  understanding  escape 
from  its  own  categories ;  the  reason  conceives  of  a  great  Reality  like  to 
itself,  but  the  understanding  must  needs  name  it  Spirit : — or,  in  wilder 
attempt  to  express  this  essence  of  things,  must  call  it  by  some  fantastic 
or  symbolic  name,  as  Creative  Love,  or  Impersonal  Reason,  or  Truth,  or 
Justice,  or  Ideal  Beauty:  but  we  speak  still  in  terms  of  ourselves :  and  so 
long  as  we  speak  or  interpret  at  all,  there  is  no  escape  from  this.  But 
when  the  faculties  of  the  mere  mind  are  closed  and  the  underlying  Real 
ity  which  is  in  us  and  sustains  us  in  our  very  existence  awakes  to  con 
sciousness,  then  do  we  truly  perceive,  or  rather,  then  does  Reality  per 
ceive  itself; — then  does  the  worshipper  become  one  with  him  whom  he 
adores  (II,  274), — then  does  God  "commune  with  himself." 


54  EMERSON 

We  may  now  see  that  Emerson's  early  statement,  that  the  under 
standing  is  fallen, — does  not  comprehend, — but  that  "our  reason  is  not 
to  be  distinguished  from  the  Divine  Essence"  (Cabot,  p.  246),  is  conven 
tional,  and  is  really  no  more  than  he  may  easily  have  found  (and  undoubt 
edly  did  find)  in  Coleridge.  It  is  quite  in  Coleridge's  manner,  and  lacks 
all  sign  of  first-hand  discovery.  It  has  no  philosophical  influence  upon 
his  original  work  immediately  following;  and  yet  this  sentence  expresses 
the  very  utmost  of  his  philosophical  reach.  Later,  the  rapt,  inspirational 
tone  in  which  he  speaks  shows  that  he  is  no  longer  attempting  to  solve 
problems,  but  that  he  is  telling  of  things  which  to  him  are  sacred.  Know 
ing  that  he  is  foredoomed  to  failure  in  his  attempt  to  utter  that  which  is 
by  its  very  nature  unutterable,  Emerson  still  attempts  to  say  what  this 
Reality  is ;  and  this  seems  to  me  his  deepest  thought  concerning  the  great 
Problem : 

"Meantime  within  man  is  the  soul  of  the  whole ;  the  wise  silence ; 
the  universal  beauty,  to  which  every  part  and  particle  is  equally  related  ; 
the  eternal  ONE.  And  this  deep  power  in  which  we  exist  and  whose 
beatitude  is  all  accessible  to  us,  is  not  only  self-sufficing  and  perfect  in 
every  hour,  but  the  act  of  seeing  and  the  thing  seen,  the  seer  and  the 
spectacle,  the  subject  and  the  object,  are  one.  We  see  the  world  piece  by 
piece,  as  the  sun,  the  moon,  the  animal,  the  tree;  but  the  whole,  of  which 
these  are  shining  parts,  is  the  soul.  ...  I  dare  not  speak  for  it.  ...  All 
goes  to  show  that  the  soul  in  man  is  not  an  organ,  but  animates  and  ex 
ercises  all  the  organs ;  is  not  a  function  ...  is  not  a  faculty,  but  a  light ; 
is  not  the  intellect  or  the  will,  but  the  master  of  the  intellect  and  the  will ; 
is  the  background  of  our  being,  in  which  they  lie, — an  immensity  not 
possessed  and  that  cannot  be  possessed.  .  .  .  When  it  breathes  through 
his  intellect  it  is  genius ;  when  it  breathes  through  his  will,  it  is  virtue ; 
when  it  flows  through  his  affection  it  is  love.  ...  It  contradicts  all  ex 
perience.  ...  It  abolishes  time  and  space.  .  .  .  The  soul  knows  only  the 
soul;  the  web  of  events  is  the  flowing  robe  in  which  she  is  clothed"  (II, 
253-257). 

And  so  that  brilliant  but  mystical  essay  on  the  "Over-Soul"  pro 
ceeds, — suggesting  wonderful  reaches  of  truth  to  those  who  have  had  ex 
periences  like  Emerson's  own, — suggesting  nothing  at  all  to  the  mass  of 
men  or  the  mere  thinkers.  But  at  the  point  of  its  approach  to  real  origi 
nality  and  greatness,  Emerson's  thought  rises  out  of  the  realm  of  Phil 
osophy  altogether  and  dwells  in  the  pure  region  of  Religion.  At  this 
point,  therefore,  we  must  leave  our  attempt  to  trace  his  philosophical  de 
velopment,  and  concern  ourselves  with  that  faculty,  or  rather  condition  of 
mind  in  which  the  New  England  Transcendentalists  thought  the  "pure 
practical  reason"  asserted  its  claims: — "that  blessed  mood,"  as  Words 
worth  calls  it  in  his  "Tintern  Abbey," 


IDENTITY  OF  SUBJECT  AND  OBJECT  55 

"In  which  the  burden  of  the  mystery, 
In  which  the  heavy  and  the  weary  weight 
Of  all  this  unintelligible  world 
Is  lightened : — that  serene  and  blessed  mood 
In  which  the  affections  gently  lead  us  on, — 
Until,  the  breath  of  this  corporeal  frame, 
And  even  the  motion  of  our  human  blood, 
Almost  suspended,  we  are  laid  asleep 
In  body,  and  become  a  living  soul : 
While  with  an  eye  made  quiet  by  the  power 
Of  harmony,  and  the  deep  power  of  joy, 
We  see  into  the  life  of  things." 

Our  problem  now  becomes  more  technical  and  perhaps  more  tan 
gible,  though  still  dealing  with  elements  forever  somewhat  vague,  than 
the  unraveling  of  Emerson's  metaphysics  has  been — the  chronicling  of 
those  glimmering  suggestions  of  theory  which  were  and  were  not  his. 
What  is  really  the  meaning  and  significance  of  this  belief  in  intuition? 
If  it  was  a  purely  religious  experience,  superinduced  by  a  certain  exalted 
state  of  mind,  is  it  to  be  dealt  with  as  merely  a  pathological  condition, 
and  is  that  to  negate  wholly  the  religious  implications  which  are  derived 
from  it  ? 


56  EMERSON 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  EPISTEMOLOGICAL  BASIS  OF  EMERSON'S  PHILOSOPHY  :    THE  THEORY 

OF  INTUITION. 

Having  attempted  a  general  analysis  of  what  we  may  term  Emer 
son's  metaphysics,  we  are  in  some  position  to  consider  that  element  of 
his  system  which,  with  even  greater  apologies,  we  must  call  his  epistem- 
ology. 

Emerson's  belief  in  intuition  was  a  logical  deduction  from  his  theory 
•of  identity.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  while  _the_jdentity  theory 
was  a  gradual  growth  in  his  mind,  a  belief  in  intuition  was  always  at  the 
very  center  of  his  system;  that  therefore  the  meaning  he  attaches  to  his 
faith  in  intuition  will  vary  according  to  the  stage  he  has  arrived  at  phil 
osophically  in  his  theory  of  identity.  I  confess  that  this  statement  would 
have  met  with  surprise  and  probably  also  with  denial  from  Emerson 
himself,  but  I  think  it  is  true  nevertheless. 

The  usual  opinion  regarding  Emerson's  belief  in  intuition  is  that  it 
is  simply  the  unexgjained  and  unphilosophical  assumption  of  all  Mysti- 
ci$jn,  namely,  thatjhtjie  soul  perceives  because  it  is  a  part  of  the  great  all- 
knowing  Reality ;  j  or,  as  Emerson  himself  puts  it,  that  the  intellect's 
vision  is  "not  litce*  the  vision  of  the  eye,  but  is  a  union  with  the  things 
known"  (II,  304).  This,  so  far  as  it  goes,  is  a  correct  statement  of 
Emerson's  theory  in  every  stage  of  its  development,  and,  stated  thus 
broadly,  it  is  one  which  he  never  denies  or  contradicts.  But  again,  stated 
thus  broadly,  nothing  could  be  more  hopeless  of  explanation  than  such 
a  theory.  JBy  this  "union,"  the  Over-Soul  not  only  fills  but  js  the  indi 
vidual  soul,  just  as  the  ocean  tide  fills  and  floods  for  a  time  the  shallow 
brook  flowing  into  it,  and  becomes  one  with  it,  and  then  retreats  again, 
leaving  the  "brook,"  the  individual  mind,  with  only  "a  far-off  memory." 
But  this  "influx  of  the  Divine  mind  into  our  mind"  (II,  263),  is  a  "pos 
session"  which  leaves  no  room  for  anything  but  itself,  so  that  to  say  we 
perceive  in  these  great  moments  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  "the 
Maker  .  .  .  casts  his  dread  omniscience  through  us  over  things  (/&.)  ; 
and  yet,  again,  the  individual  mind  must  be  something  quite  other  than 
this  universal  spirit,  for  we  are  told  that  "we  need  only  obey,"  that  we 
have  the  power  to  "surrender"  our  wills,  to  "place"  ourselves  in  the 
"stream  of  power  and  wisdom  which  animates  all  it  floats,"  that  we  may 
"allow"  the  currents  of  the  universal  soul  to  flow  unimpeded  through  our 


THEORY  OF  INTUITION  57 

being;   indeed  we  may  recognize  its  presence  as  a  "joy  and  exultation"; 
and  to  receive  it  is  an  act  of  "piety." 

But  Emerson's  "intuition"  continued  to  tell  him  that  these  things 
were  so,  however  unaccountable  they  might  be.  That  intuition  was  not 
to  be  explained  by  this  first  general  statement  of  it  he  fully  recognized ; 
and  through  the  year  1841,  when  his  First  Series  of  Essays  was  pub 
lished,  he  continues  to  state  the  hopelessness  of  any  attempt  at  explana 
tion.  In  his  address  on  "The  Method  of  Nature"  in  that  year,  he  writes : 
"But  at  last  what  has  he  to  recite  but  the  fact  that  there  is  a  Life  not  to 
be  described  or  known  otherwise  than  by  possession  ?  What  account  has 
he  to  give  of  his  essence  more  than  so  it  was  to  be?  .  .  .  There  is  the 
incoming  or  the  receding  of  God :  that  is  all  we  can  affirm ;  and  we  can 
show  neither  how  nor  why"  (I,  195).  And  again,  in  the  essay  on  "Self- 
Reliance, "  though  recognizing  the  common  origin  of  ourselves  and  of 
nature,  he  does  not  yet  see  how  intuition  is  to  be  explained :  "We  denote 
this  primary  wisdom  as  Intuition,  whilst  all  later  teachings  are  tuitions. 
In  that  deep  force,  the  last  fact  behind  which  analysis  cannot  go,  all 
things  find  their  common  origin.  For  the  sense  of  being  which  in  calm 
hours  rises,  we  know  not  how,  in  the  soul,  is  not  diverse  from  things, 
from  space,  from  light,  from  time,  from  man,  but  one  with  them  and 
proceeds  obviously  from  the  same  source  whence  their  life  and  being  also 
proceed."  For  a  moment  we  seem  on  the  verge  of  an  explanation.  "We 
first  share  the  life  by  which  things  exist  and  afterwards  see  them  as  ap 
pearances  in  nature  and  forget  that  we  have  shared  their  cause."  But 
"if  we  ask  whence  this  comes,  if  we  seek  to  pry  into  the  soul  that  causes, 
all  philosophy  is  at  fault.  Its  presence  or  its  absence  is  all  we  can  affirm" 
(11,64,65). 

Because  of  Emerson's  so  constant  insistence  upon  this  merely  mys 
tical  point  of  view,  especially  in  his  better  known  and  more  purely  phil 
osophical  essays,  it  is  commonly  felt  that  he  makes  no  advance  upon  it. 
Intuition  remains  a  "pious  reception,"  or  at  best  a  "glad  and  conspiring 
reception,"  an  openness  "of  one  side  of  our  nature"  to  receive  new  truth ; 
and  farther  than  this,  even  Cabot  says,  "he  did  not  attempt  to  go  in  the  way 
of  doctrine."  8T  But  though  Mr.  Cabot  knew  Emerson's  writings  so  inti 
mately,  and  his  work  under  Emerson's  own  eye  was  always  so  wholly 
satisfactory  to  his  master,  yet  there  does  seem  to  be  more  to  say  for 
Emerson's  intuition  theory  than  just  this.  In  the  Essays  of  the  Second 
Series  and  in  all  his  writings  after  1844,  the  thought  of  an  explanation 
was  in  Emerson's  mind,— the  growing  desire  to  write  a  "Natural  History 
of  Intellect,"  which  at  last  he  tried — and  failed — to  do. 

7  A  Memoir  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  vol.  I,  p.  235. 


58  EMERSON 

It  was  not,  it  seems  to  me,  the  impossibility  of  explaining  intuition 
so  much  as  the  very  assurance  it  claimed  for  itself  that  led  in  Emerson's 
mind  to  the  demand  for  a  deeper  account  of  it.  Indeed,  this  positiveness 
of  the  intuition  is  its  own  negation;  for  if  it  may  ever  know  wrongly,  so 
that  a  later  intuition  may  contradict  or  transcend  it,  then  it  may  always 
know  wrongly,  and  there  is  no  test  for  it.  Though  Emerson  will  not 
admit  this  directly,  yet  we  find  him  in  his  later  essays  becoming  less  as 
sertive  and  more  inquisitive  regarding  the  ultimate  nature  of  this  per 
ception  of  actuality;  and  as  soon  as  he  does  this  the  conclusion  becomes 
inevitable  that  the  self-consciousness  of  the  reason  is  a  relative  matter; 
that  while  indeed  the  soul  could  not  perceive  falsely,  yet  there  must  be 
certain  conditions  which  clog  and  hinder  its  perfect  vision ;  that  it  must 
not  be  separated  too  completely  from  the  understanding,  and  from  the 
processes  of  nature  by  which  it  is  derived. 

When  Emerson  came  to  consider  that  a  deeper  cause  than  spirit  must 
be  postulated  as  the  ground  of  being,  the  explanation  of  intuition  was  at 
once  possible  though  it  seems  not  to  have  been  immediately  apparent  to 
himself.  If  he  could  have  accepted  this  new  solution  frankly  and  fully, 
and  not  have  bound  himself  down  (though  of  course  with  entire  honesty) 
to  a  continued  adherence  to  those  earlier  "intuitions"  which  he  had  un 
consciously  outgrown,  there  would  be  no  confusion  in  following  out  his 
system  to  its  close.  But  the  religious,  the  supernatural  side  of  intuition 
impressed  him  so  deeply  that  he  no  sooner  made  a  new  "generalization*' 
than  he  felt  the  need  of  stating,  side  by  side  with  it,  his  belief  in  the  old._ 
It  is  this  that  makes  his  essays  so  baffling,  that  has  led  so  many  to  feel 
the  utter  hopelessness  of  trying  to  find  in  them  any  order  or  consistency 
whatever. 

From  the  very  start  Emerson  taught  that  "Nature  is  the  present 
expositor  of  the  Divine  mind,"  and  can  be  wholly  known  to  man  since 
"its  laws  are  laws  of  his  own  mind;"  and  hence  he  could  say  that  "the 
ancient  precept,  'Know  thyself,'  and  the  modern  precept,  'Study  nature/ 
become  at  last  one  maxim"  (I,  88).  But  so  long  as  he  gave  even  a  nom 
inal  adherence  to  the  purely  idealistic  theory  of  the  dependence  of  nature 
upon  spirit,  every  door  to  a  possible  explanation  of  intuition  was  closed 
Jto  Jiim.  That  he  felt  this,  and  was  about  to  make  a  new  "generalization" 
appears  plainly  from  his  essay  on  "Circles,"  in  what  is  perhaps  the  most 
significant  sentence  in  his  whole  philosophy.  "Fear  not  the  new  general 
ization.  Does  the  fact  look  crass  and  material,  threatening  to  degrade  thy 
theory  of  spirit?  Resist  it  not;  it  goes  to  refine  and  raise  thy  theory  of 
matter  just  as  much"  (II,  285).  Yet  nowhere  in  the  Second  Series  of 
Essays,  where  he  is  most  concerned  with  giving  the  causes  of  things 


THEORY  OF  INTUITION  59 

which  before  he  had  merely  assumed,  does  he  quite  come  to  the  point  of 
the  explanation  of  his  chief  difficulty.  In  the  last  essay  on  Nature,  though 
here  we  find  the  balance  wholly  in  favor  of  evolution  and  the  identity  of 
the  soul  with  nature,  he  has  only  the  tone  of  explanation,  with  no  real  ad 
vance,  so  far  as  intuition  is  concerned,  beyond  his  first  position : 

"This  guiding  identity  runs  through  all  the  surprises  and  contrasts 
of  the  piece,  and  characterizes  every  law.  Man  carried  the  world  in  his 
head,  the  whole  astronomy  and  chemistry  suspended  in  a  thought.  Be 
cause  the  history  of  nature  is  charactered  in  his  brain,  therefore  is  he  the 
prophet  and  discoverer  of  her  secrets"  (III,  1/6). 

In  like  manner,  in  the  ''Experience''  essay,  in  the  "Nominalist  and 
Realist,"  and  in  the  less  frequent  philosophical  passages  in  the  other  es 
says  cf  this  series,  he  contents  himself  with  proclaiming  again  the  un 
limited  "extent"  and  "validity"  of  intuition,  while  he  makes  no  clear 
statement  as  to  the  "origin"  of  our  knowledge  of  things.  But  in  the  in 
troductory  essay  to  his  next  book.  Representative  Men,  Emerson  no 
longer  hesitates  to  draw  the  inevitable  conclusion : 

'The  possibility  of  interpretation  lies  in  the  identity  of  the  observer 
with  the  observed.  Each  material  thing  has  its  celestial  side;  has  its 
translation,  through  humanity,  into  the  spiritual  and  necessary  sphere 
where  it  plays  a  part  as  indestructible  as  any  other.  And  to  these,  their 
ends,  all  things  continually  ascend.  The  gases  gather  to  the  solid  firma 
ment ;  the  chemic  lump  arrives  at  the  plant,  and  grows;  arrives  at  the 
quadruped,  and  wralks ;  arrives  at  the  man,  and  thinks.  But  also  the  con 
stituency  determines  the  vote  of  the  representative.  He  is  not  only  rep 
resentative,  but  participant.  Like  can  be  known  only  by  like.  The  rea 
son  why  he  knows  about  them  is  that  he  is  of  them;  he  has  just  come 
out  of  nature,  or  from  being  a  part  of  that  thing"  (IV,  16). 

Now  if  there  is  indeed  a  final  consistency  in  Emerson's  thought,  an 
underlying  synthesis  possible  for  even  the  main  elements  of  it,  it  must 
lie  in  his  final  belief  that  the  intuition  is  due  notj3n]y  to  the  spiritual  es 
sence  of  the  "Reason,"  but  also  to  the  fact  that  the  self-consciousness  of 
4£e  Reason  is  itself  the  result  of  the  evolution  of  "Nature."  In  Emer 
son's  first  period  the  perception  of  the  individual  "reason"  is  due  to  some 
inexplicable  union  with  the  universal  "Reason,"  followed  by  an  even 
more  incomprehensible  severance  from  it ;  but  by  the  coming  in  of  the 
evolution  theory  a  seemingly  rational  explanation  of  intuition  becomes 

possible. 

And  yet,  stripping  it  of  its  transcendental  coloring,  what  is  this  but 
the  merest  realism?  Nominally,  intuition  remains  to  the  end  an  "angel- 
whispering,— which  discomfits  the  conclusions  of  nations  and  of  years" 
(III,  69)  ;  'but  in  cold  actuality  "We  define  Genius  to  be  a  sensibility  to 


60  EMERSON 

all  the  impressions  of  the  outer  world"  (X,  78),  and  genius,  be  it  re 
membered,  is  the  action  of  the  soul  when  it  "sees  absolute  truth"  (I,  91). 
According  to  Emerson,  then,  the  common  background  of  being  rises 
in  the  lower  animals  to  the  point  of  instinct,  which  is  "nature  when  it 
first  becomes  intelligent"  (XII,  33),  and  "Inspiration,"  which  is  the  vis 
ible  working  of  intuition  in  man,  "is  only  this  power  excited,  breaking 
its  silence"  (XII,  32).  Thus  the  instinct  of  animals,  which  is  the  same 
in  kind  as  intuition  in  man,  though  lower  in  the  stage  of  its  development, 
is  still  "highejr  than  the. understanding"  (I,  3i9).\Butltoa^]ia.ring  of  the 
common  nature  is  all  there  is  to  the  plant  or  animal,  for  only  the  Intellect 
"emancipates  the  individual,  for  infinite  good  and  also  for  infinite  ill" 
(quoted  by  Cabot,  vol.  II,  p.  734).  As  mere  products  of  nature,  men  are 
not  true  individuals  at  all.  But  the  development  of  the  intellectual  facul 
ties  in  man  produces  an  individual  in  the  true  sense  of  the  term,  one  who 
can  transcend  the  common  nature  and  impose  his  personality  upon  it,  so 
that  under  this  inhibitory  effect  the  underlying  nature  becomes  "dor 
mant."  "As  the  reflective  faculties  open,  this  subsides"  (X,  75).  It  is 
because  he  ceases  to  share  in  the  immediate  possession  of  the  common 
essence  of  all  things,  and  develops  into  a  separate  entity,  that  "the  indi 
vidual  is  always  mistaken,"  and  therefore  our  prime  duty  is  to  "sur 
render"  our  will,  that  is,  to  remove  the  inhibitory  effect  of  the  under 
standing  upon  the  divinity  within  us  ;  in  other  words,  to  go  into  a  per 
petual  state  of  "ecstasy."  When  we  do  so,  the  Soul  lives  through  us,  and  is 
genius  or  is  virtue  or  is  love  in  a  man,  according  as  it  "breathes  through" 
his  intellect  or  his  will  or  his  affection  (II,  255).  Later,  his  realization 
that  "all  nature  is  ecstatic"  led  Emerson  to  feel  that  the  animal  also  must 
yield  to  nature  in  order  to  realize  "his  highest  point ;"  that  the  difference 
in  intelligence  and  even  in  morality  is  "only  of  less  and  more"  (X,  178)  ; 
but  this  line  of  thought  came  to  him  too  late  in  life,  and  he  stops  short 
with  it  before  going  very  far. 

But  though  Emerson  considered  that  "ecstasy"  is  a  state  in  which 
^  the  activity  of  the  understanding  is  partially  or  totally  suspended,  and  a 
deeper,  instinctive  nature  asserts  itself,  yet  the  difficulty  of  this  for  psy 
chology  is  fundamental.    Since  this  divinity  or  "reason"  is  "complete  and 
,  perfect  in  every  man,"  is  "adult  already  in  the  infant  man,"  it  follow_s__that 
•~,th£,_£uspension  of  our  ordinary  thinking  faculties  would  make  deities  of 
us  jail  A  Leaving  aside  all  equally  obvious  objections,  this  theory  leaves  a 
complete  dualism  in  the  mind  of  man.    In  so  far  as  it  has  any  further  in 
terest  for  us,  therefore,  Emerson's  intuition  theory  relates  itself  not  to 
his  philosophical  but  to  his  religious  insights,  and  as  such  we  must  take 
our  final  account  of  it. 


THE  RELIGIOUS   IMPLICATIONS  OF  EMERSON^S   PHILOSOPHY  61 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE    RELIGIOUS    IMPLICATIONS    OF    EMERSON'S    PHILOSOPHY:      THE 
NATURE  OF  GOD;   HUMAN  RESPONSIBILITY;    IMMORTALITY. 

The  state  which  Emerson  describes  as  "ecstasy"  was  in  his  own  case 
one  of  religious  enthusiasm,  superinduced  largely,  as  with  all  mystics,  by 
the  strain  of  a  lofty  contemplation,  but  of  course  without  any  of  the  vul 
gar  features  which  attended  the  ecstasies  of  those  mystics  whose  condi 
tion  was  brought  about  by  abnormal  or  unhealthy  processes.  His  natural 
sanity  and  normal  habits  of  life  contributed  to  make  his  "subliminal  self" 
well  balanced, — with  none  of  the  fetid  and  disordered  dreams  so  com 
mon  in  this  condition.  J^esatnahly  his  rnqgients  of  profound  ecstasy 
were  very  occasional,  for  of  this  he  himself  complains;  arM  his  later 
attempts  at  philosophical  construction,  such  as  the  Xatural  History  of 
Intellect,  contain  no  more  of  the  old  fervor  than  would  naturally  be  due 
to  previous  habit.  In  his  admirable  essay  on  Emerson,  Mr.  John  Jay 
Chapman  notes  that  the  mystical  mood  comes  to  us  all,  even  in  health, 
but  is  then  only  momentary,  \vhile  with  Emerson  it  was  a  prevailing 
habit;  and  this  is  true.  But  Emerson  himself  tells  us  that  the  "mood" 
varies  from  the  slightest  thrill  of  virtuous  emotion  to  enthusiasm  and 
ecstasy.  Only  his  occasional  and  deepest  moments,  therefore,  can  justly 
be  considered  as  being  due  to  an  abnormal  condition. 

\Yhat  seems  actually  to  have  led  Emjrgon  t<>  his  belief  in  intuition 
is  the  peculiar  emotional  experience  which  seems  to  have  attended  it ;  he 
was  "strangely  affected"  by  any  unusual  experience,  by  "seeing  the  shore 
from  a  moving  ship"  and  the  like.  "The  least. change  in  our  point  of 
view  gives  the  whole  world  a  pictorial  air ;"  that  is  to  say,  it  introduces 
a  feeling  of  unreality  (I,  55).  Even  as  late  as  1844,  when  this  condition 
must  have  been  passing  away,  he  writes,  "Life  wears  to  me  a  visionary 
face."  Implicitly  he  argues  from  his  psychological  state  to  the  reality  of 
what  he  believes  causes  that  state.  The  experience,  as  Mr.  Chapman 
says,  is  one  common  to  all.  There  is  a  feeling  of  "otherness"  which  at 
tends  the  discovery  or  reception  of  such  a  large  and  new  idea  as  is  related 
somehow  to  the  soul's  growth.  Even  when  one  is  working  over  a  prob 
lem  in  Mathematics,  bewildered  and  blinded  by  the  mere  figures,  and  sud 
denly  the  whole  large  solution  of  it  comes  over  him,  then  he  seems  to 
himself  to  see  with  other  eyes ;  let  the  new  discovery  have  a  life  sig- 


62  EMERSON 

nificance  and  it  is  perfectly  natural  to  attribute  it  to  a  divine  revelation.88 
There  are  two  ways  in  which  a  belief  in  intuition  may  be  iater- 
jreted.^It  is  possible  for  one  to  accept  his  own  intuitions,  asserting-  their 
infallibility  without  proof;  or  he  may  lack  confidence  in  himself  and  his 
own  intuitions,  but  recognize  their  possibility  in  other  and  holier  men 
than  he,  and  accept  unquestioningly  what  those  claiming  to  be  so  inspired 
have  said.  In  the  former  class  were  the  great  majority  of  the  lesser 
members  of  the  Transcendental  group ;  in  the  latter  class  were  those 
who,  puzzled  with  the  multifarious  problems  of  the  period  we  are  study 
ing,  found  peace  and  rest  in  the  authority  of  the  church  of  Rome.  And 
not  only  in  the  Catholic  reaction,  but  in  the  development  of  such  con 
servatism  as  Goethe's  the  tendency  of  the  believer  in  intuitions  is  often 
away  from  the  individualism  of  his  own  perceptions  to  the  acceptance  or 
what  is  universal, — the  result  of  the  intuition  of  all  men ;  so  that  it  is 
not  uncommon  to  find  the  Transcendentalist  a  defender  of  prevailing  in 
stitutions.  Emerson's  attitude  shows  something  of  a  compromise  be 
tween  these  two  extremes!  On  the  one  side  was  his  constant  preaching 
of  self-reliance, — the  necessary  result  of  the  belief  that  "not  I  speak  but 
the  Father  speaketh  through  me ;"  on  the  other  side  that  eagej^exrjectarit: 
attitude  with  which  he  listened, — "hungrily"  it  is  said, — to  the  opinions 
of  all  about  him.  His  faith  in  persons,  said  Bronson  Alcott,  amounted 
almost  to  superstition.89  The  seeming  inconsistency  of  this  is  resolvable 
in  Emerson's  gradual  inclining  toward  the  second  belief,  that  any  other 
might  have  a  finer  insight,  a  loftier  imagination  than  his  own.  It  is 
doubtful  if  he  would  have  taught  his  great  principle  of  self-reliance  so 
insistently  and  incessantly  if  he  had  not  been  by  nature  self-distrustful. 
Intuitions,  he  felt,  must  be  tested  by  their  conformity  to  the  moral  law; 
they  are  to  bej^ot,  not  by  an  effort  of  will,  but  by  self-renunciation ;  they 
are  to  be  prepared  for  by  purity  in  life  and  thought,  and  to  be  worked 
out  in  character  and  action. 


38  If  it  was  this  experience  of  exaltation  that  led  Emerson  to  his  belief  in 
himself  and  his  religious  reverence  for  his  own  intuitions,  the  reason  for  his  taking 
seriously  the  inspirational  claims  of  his  associates  could  easily  be  found,  I  think, 
in  his  interpreting  in  the  light  of  his  own  emotion  the  difference  between  their 
ordinary  and  their  serious  conversation.  Margaret  Fuller  and  Bronson  Alcott,  for 
example,  in  their  published  writings  have  little  of  philosophical  value,  for  here 
they  wrote  in  propria  persona,  so  to  speak;  yet  their  personal  impression  on  such 
men  as  Emerson  was  very  great.  An  "inspirational  lecturer"  who  seemed  to  me 
somewhat  left  over  from  Transcendental  days,  betrayed  in  a  private  conversation 
a  difference  almost  incredible  between  his  attitude  of  mind  when  concerned  with 
the  petty  and  annoying  affairs  of  every-day  life,  and  when  talking  about  the  deeper 
things  of  life. 

89  Life  of  Emerson,  p.  46. 


THE  RELIGIOUS   IMPLICATIONS  OF   EMERSON'S  PHILOSOPHY  63 

And  thus  it  was,  with  these  Transcendentalists,  that  no  faith  or 
phase  of  faith,  everfif  It  had  been  "revealed"  by  a  previous  "intuition," 
could  stand  before  a  new  flood  of  light.  Brownson,  one  of  the  most 
typical  of  the  Transcendentalists,  went  from  creed  to  creed,  each  time 
knowing  that  at  last  he  was  right,  and  the  last  time  (or  two)  knowing 
that  he  "could  not  be  wrong."  It  is  this  assurance  in  the  face  of  the  ob 
vious  impossibility  of  confirmation  that  makes  mysticism  essentially  a 
matter  of  faith,  and  that  makes  all  faith,  to  the  extent  that  it  is  faith 
merely,  a  matter  of  mysticism.  Thus  faith  must  always  have  its  psy 
chological  explanation,  and  must  be  essentially  super-rational  or  it  is  not 
faiih  at  all.  It  can  never  allow  for  doubt  on  the  one  hand,  or  for  proof 
on  the  other. 

Before  considering  what  were  the  religious  implications  of  Emer 
son's  philosophy,  we  must  take  account  of  one  other  element  essential  to 
a.  correct  understanding  of  his  attitude.  Beyond  what  I  have  called  his 
habit  of  lofty  contemplation  and  his  sense  of  the  unreality  of  things, 
there  was  in  Emerson  a  certain  childlike  simplicity  of  mind  which  made 
him  feel  himself,  as  he  seemed  to  others,  to  belong  to  the  very  scheme  of 
things, — a  certain  sublime  naturalness  which  led  Theodore  Parker  to  say 
that  he  thanked  God  in  his  prayers  for  the  sun,  moon,  and  Emerson. 
This  feeling  of  kinship  to  nature  and  to  God  seems  to  be  essential  to  the 
true  mystic,  and  to  be  the  very  foundation  of  his  faith,  whether  it  take 
the  form  of  the  profound  philosophic  speculations  of  a  Spinoza  or  the 
sweet  childish  babblings  of  a  William  Blake.  The  occult  relation  which 
in  1832  Emerson  felt  in  the  Jardin  des  Plantes  to  exist  between  the  ani 
mals  and  man,90  and  which  still  appeared  occult  to  him  after  forty  years 
of  philosophizing  (X,  20),  joined  with  his  sense  of  the  immanence  of 
God  and  the  transitoriness  of  the  "surfaces"  amid  which  we  live,  was  it 
self,  and  without  any  special  psychological  condition,  sufficient  basis  for  a 
mystical  philosophy. 

It  has  been  said,  upon  how  complete  data  of  evidence  I  do  not 
know,91  that  no  crime  is  possible  to  the  "subjective  mind"  which  would 
not  be  possible  to  the  subject  in  his  waking  state.  However  this  may  be, 
it  would  seem  that  one's  sub-conscious  nature  is  largely  (if  not  wholly) 
what  he  has  made  it.  Emerson's  remarkable  purity  of  heart,  his  eleva 
tion  of  thought,  the  beauty  and  serenity  of  his  life,  led  him  to  recognize 
the  deity  within  him  as  of  that  large  and  passive  make  which  we  find 
smiling  so  blandly  through  his  pages.  For  as  "the  poor  Indian  whose 
untutored  mind"  coins  a  deity  after  his  own  pattern,  when  in  a  moment 


90  Cabot,  vol.  II,  p.  710. 

91  Thomas  Jay  Hudson  :     Law  of  Psychic  Phenomena. 


64  EMERSON 

of  deep  mysticism  he  watches  the  sun  go  down  into  "naked  space"  and 
feels  the  night  creep  closer  about  him,  so  the  enlightened  Emerson  sub 
tends  his  arc  of  divinity  to  cover  his  own  conception  of  the  universe. 
There  is  a  deep  and  essential  truth  in  the  perverted  saying  that  "man 
created  God  in  his  own  image," — for  how  could  it  be  other?  No  reve 
lation,  even,  could  tell  us  more  than  we  are  capable  of  conceiving.  "The 
god  of  the  cannibals  will  be  a  cannibal,  of  the  crusaders  a  crusader,  and 
of  the  merchants  a  merchant,"  says  Emerson  himself  (VI,  196). 

When  we  come  to  consider  what  Emerson  has  to  say  as  to  the  first 
of  the  three  great  postulates  of  religion,  concerning  the  nature  and  ex- 
isfepce  of  God,  we  find  a  most  curious  combination  of  intuitive, percep 
tion  with  philosophical  deduction.  Working  quietly  and  with  all  due 
philosophical  decorum  on  the  necessity  of  this  "unbounded  substance"  or 
"illimitable  essence,"  he  is  wont  suddenly  to  burst  into  a  rhapsody  oi  fer 
vid  assurance,  apparently  conceiving  of  God  as  a  personal  Being ;  which 
sudden  intuition  he  immediately  tries  to  bury  in  the  argument  upon  which 
it  has  umvarrantedly  intruded.  "O  my  brothers,  God  exists.  Thgre^is^j. 
soul  at  the  center  of  nature  and  over  the  will  of  every  man,  so  that  none 
of  us  can  wrong  the  universe"  (II,  132).  With  the  fervor  of  the  prophet 
always  creeps  in  the  symbolism  of  the  poet ;  almost  before  he  knows  it 
the  word  is  spoken ;  the  secret  which  cannot  be  known  has  been  pro 
claimed  abroad. 

But  how  far  is  it  possible  to  reconcile  the  God  of  Emerson's  faith 
with  the  God  of  his  philosophy?  Was  he,  in  the  last  analysis,  theist  or 
pantheist?  In  making  statements  which  imply  now  the  theistic  and  now 
the  pantheistic  conception,  Emerson  merely  wishes  to  hold  himself  aloof, 
somehow,  from  committing  himself  to  either  point  of  view.  It  was 
again  his  feeling  that  the  perfect  truth  lay  deeper  than  any  actual  ex 
pression  of  it.  In  the  same  attitude  he  even  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  he 
had  reason  for  believing  in  Unitarianism  and  the  other  ism  at  the  same 
time.92  And  so  Emerson  nowhere  expressly  denies  either  side  of  this 
great  question.  When  he  speaks  of  coming  upon  a  secret  which  "sweeps 
out  of  men's  minds  all  vestige  of  theism"  (VI,  302),  it  is  only  the  beliefs 
which  "their  fathers  held"  that  he  means.  It  is  this  conception  of  God 
that  he  repudiates  with  so  much  lofty  scorn.  "When  we  have  broken  our 
god  of  tradition  and  ceased  from  our  god  of  rhetoric,  then  may  God  fire 
the  heart  with  his  presence"  (II,  274).  Parker  felt  that  Emerspn  was 
always  a  theist,  though  his  vagueness  in  the  use  of  terms  laid  him  open 
to  the  pantheistic  charge,  and  Holbeach  claims  not  only  that  Emerson 

92  Quoted  by  Dr.  M.  D.  Conway  in  The  Critic  for  May  1903. 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOD  (tf 

is  theistic  but  that  all  good  theism  is  transcendental.93    The  most  definite 
defense  of  Emerson's  theism  seems  to  me  that  of  Mr.  G.  W.  Cooke : 

"To  limit  Emerson's  idea  of  the  Infinite  Spirit  to  what  he  has  said 
directly  about  God  would  be  to  do  him  a  great  injustice.  His  idea  of  God 
is  presupposed  in  his  idea  of  the  soul,  and  must  be  studied  in  conjunction 
with  it.  The  conception  he  entertains  of  the  soul  necessitates  belief  in 
God  as  a  supreme  intelligent  Existence.  A  thinking  soul  cannot  hold 
communion  with  an  unthinking  essence."  93° 

This  seems  to  me  perhaps  a  trifle  arbitrary  as  an  interpretation  of 
Emerson's  thought  as  a  whole ;  for  whether  it  possible  or  not,  Emerson 
seems  to  have  believed  finally  that  this  underlying  Reality  arrives  at  con 
sciousness  in  man,  and  that  this  is  all  the  ''communion"  there  is : — it  is  es 
sentially  a  soliloquy.  That  God  has  any  other  means  of  self-communica 
tion  than  this,  Emerson  does  not  teach ;  that  which  is  "Reason"  in  man, 
in  Nature  is  only  "Spirit," — an  impersonal  reality  whose  eternal  progress 
is  fully  reflected  in  its  "gigantic  shadow." 

But  this  seems  to  confine  God  to  a  very  limited  and  recent  selfhood, 
and  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of  man  to  an  infinite  degree.  It 
brings  us  near  to  the  conclusions  of  a  contemporary  critic :  "Pantheism 
sinks  man  and  nature  in  God;  Materialism  sinks  God  and  man  in  the 
universe ;  Transcendentalism  sinks  God  and  nature  in  man."  94  Years 
later  Emerson  himself  wrote  in  his  Journal,  "Transcendentalism  says,  the 
Man  is  all"  (VII,  268).  But  Emerson  could  scarcely  stop  just  here. 
Man  cannot  be  the  culmination  of  Nature,  for  man  is  a  failure  when 
viewed  in  such  a  light  (I,  192).  But  "to  questions  of  this  sort,"  says 
Emerson,  "Nature  replies,  'I  grow.'  ...  'I  have  ventured  so  great  a  stake 
as  my  success  in  no  single  creature,  I  have  not  yet  arrived  at  any  end'  " 
(PP-  J93>  :94)-  That  is  to  say,  God  may  yet  attain  to  a  degree  of  self- 
realization  in  some  conscious  entity  more  perfect  than  we — for  "Nature 
can  only  be  conceived  as  existing  to  a  universal  and  not  to  a  particular 
end"  (p.  192),  although  "the  termination  of  the  world  in  a  man  appears 
to  be  the  last  victory  of  intelligence"  (p.  195).  In  taking  this  teleolog- 
ical  tone,  Emerson  does  not  mean  to  imply  conscious  purpose  or  fore 
sight  ;  all  he  can  find  is  "one  superincumbent  tendency" ;  merely  the 
faith  that  "there  is  no  chance  and  no  anarchy  in  the  universe.  All  is 
system  and  gradation"  (VI,  308).  Purpose  is  not  imposed  upon  a  pas 
sive  universe  but  is  the  very  constitution  of  things.  "Every  star  in  heaven 
is  discontented  and  insatiable"  (I,  202). 


93  Contemporary  Review,  vol.  XXIX,  p.  481. 

»3a  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson :    His  Life,  Writings,  and  Philosophy,  p.  288. 

94  American  Whig  Review,  vol.  I,  p.  233.     Not  signed,  but  written  by  William 
B.  Greene. 


66  EMERSON 

But  when  we  speak  of  the  "evolution  of  God,"  of  his  "arriving"  at 
consciousness  only  in  man,  we  are  talking  in  terms  of  the  phenomenal 
world.  Surely  Emerson  knew  that  God  and  the  world  of  reality  tran 
scend  space  and  time,  for  he  has  said  so  clearly  and  repeatedly.  Then  if 
this  self-realization  is  not  a  temporal  process,  why  may  not  any  of  the 
great  tenets  of  theism  be  true  ?  Consciousness  in  the  part  may  not  imply 
consciousness  in  the  totality,  but  if  we  rise  above  these  phenomenal  lim 
itations,  does  it  in  the  least  preclude  self-consciousness  in  the  totality? 

When  he  came  to  considerations  of  this  sort,  Emerson  seems  to 
have  been  unable  to  think  consistently  or  even  clearly.  It  would  require 
more  than  special  pleading  to  find  in  whatever  growth  there  may  be  in 
his  system  any  increasingly  profound  comprehension  of  this  problem. 
He  always  gives,  or  means  to  give,  a  complete  adherence  to  Kant's  doc 
trine  :  at  the  very  start  he  assumes  this  point  of  view ;  later  he  writes, 
"Time  and  space  are  but  physiological  colors  which  the  eye  makes,  but 
the  soul  is  light"  (II,  66),  which  is  a  fairly  adequate  translation  into  his 
own  poetic  language  of  the  main  conception  of  the  Transcendental 
Aesthetic ;  and  after  he  had  come  into  his  period  of  more  prosaic  phrase 
ology  he  says  punctiliously  (if  somewhat  arbitrarily)  that  "science  has 
come  to  treat  space  and  time  as  simply  forms  of  thought"  (VI,  303). 
But  in  spite  of  all  this,  I  believe  that  Emerson  never  did  and  never  could 
free  himself  from  a  practical  belief  in  the  Lockean  conception.  As  Kant 
himself  says,  we  cannot  think  space  away  from  objects,  or  time  out  of 
events ;  and  however  often  Emerson  may  have  disposed  of  these  elements 
philosophically,  he  still  found  himself  compelled  to  reckon  with  them.  In 
spite  of  his  transcendental  tone  he  can  say,  "My  eyes  and  ears  are  re 
volted  by  any  neglect  of  the  physical  facts"  (I,  189)  ;  and  however  he 
might  reason  himself  away  from  these,  to  these  he  always  returned.  An 
interesting  instance  of  this  occurs  in  the  most  profoundly  mystical  of  all 
his  essays,  where,  after  showing  how  the  "Over-Soul"  is  above  all  our 
limitations,  such  as  space  and  time,  he  proceeds  with  an  elaboration  of 
this  idea  from  a  wholly  poetic  standpoint,  and  returns  to  note  the  soul's 
advances  by  a  metamorphosis  in  which  time  is  an  essential  element  (II, 
256-258).  And  later,  again,  in  his  recognition  of  "boundless  space  and 
boundless  time"  as  "the  two  cardinal  conditions"  of  nature  (III,  173),  he 
shows  clearly  that  his  conception  was  at  best  really  Spinoza's  and  not 
Kant's. 

If  there  is  no  room  in  Emerson's  philosophy  for  a  theistic  conception 
of  God  by  a  removal  of  the  ultimately  impersonal  element  with  the  re 
moval  of  the  limitations  of  time  and  space,  is  there  any  other  means  by 
which  this  mere  background  of  being  may  be  raised  to  become  the  actual 


IMMORTALITY  67 

God  of  Emerson's  apparently  unhesitating  faith?  Such  arguments  as 
that  there  must  be  a  God  to  satisfy  the  cravings  of  the  universe  are  not 
arguments  at  all,  and  to  this  level  Emerson  seldom  descends.  The  near 
est  approach  to  a  reconciliation  lies  in  the  references  he  makes  to  God  as 
"the  Soul  of  the  world,"  the  suggestion  for  which  he  may  have  got,  like 
the  Stoics  themselves,  from  Plato.  But  this  conception  is  not  quite  true 
to  his  main  theory ;  for  in  reducing  the  relation  between  mind  and  mat 
ter  to  an  actual  substance  underlying  both,  the  body-soul  simile  of  which 
the  Stoics  make  so  much  is  no  longer  possible.  If  God  were  only  one  of 
the  results  of  the  evolution  of  this  primordial  substance,  or  one  aspect  of 
it,  there  would  be  something  in  the  universe  "older  and  deeper''  and  more 
inclusive  than  God  himself ;  and  in  such  a  conception  Emerson  could 
never  believe.  In  remaining  a  mystic  and  adhering  to  his  belief  in  im 
manence  as  against  transcendence  to  the  very  end,  Emerson  was  forced 
to  remain,  as  he  always  was,  a  pantheist.  "When  I  speak  of  God,"  said 
Emerson  once,  "I  prefer  to  say  It — It."  95 

n^  the.,  freedomjjf^the  individual  Emerson's  whole  philqsj2pjiy._w^s 
,  and  all  refractory  elements  were'fbrcecl  to  accorcTfirst  of  all  with 
this  apparent  fact.  Yet  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  possibility  of  indi 
vidual  freedom  is  ultimately  unanalyzable,  that  even  with  Emerson  it  is 
a  clear  perception  of  the  intuition  and  no  more.  And  again,  though  he 
has  said  so  much  of  high  interest  concerning  immortality,  yet  Emerson  is 
careful  not  to  draw  too  positive  a  conclusion  as  to  this  mighty  mystery. 
Indeed,  this  is  his  one  subject  of  grave  doubt.  The  reason  for  this  is  as 
interesting  as  it  is  apparent.  During  his  moments  of  intuition  he  might 
rea^dil^^perceive"  the  existence  of  God  or  his  own  freedom,  but  he  could 
scarcely  foresee  the  fact  of  his  immortality.  On  this  account  he  was 
compelled  to  take  the  subject  out  of  the  sphere  of  argument  altogether. 
"Future  state  is  an  illusion  for  the  ever-present  state.  It  is  not  length  of 
life  but  depth  of  life.  It  is  not  duration,  but  a  talking  of  the  soul  out  of 
ime,  as  all  high  action  of  the  mind  does"  (VIII,  329).  But  in  arguing 
that  we  cannot  argue  about  this  subject,  because  in  our  moments  of  in 
tuition  we  perceive  that  we  are  in  our  highest  state  immortal,  we  come 
upon  the  most  delightful  of  paradoxes ;  we  may  be  immortal  for  a  time, 
and  then,  as  we  descend  from  this  state  of  exaltation,  we  may  cease  to 
be  immortal!  If  we  are  really  serious  in  our  abolishing  of  time,  the  very 
word  Immortality  has  no  meaning.  As  much  as  this  Emerson  practically 
admits  when  he  says,  "These  questions  which  we  lust  to  ask  about  the 
future  are  a  confession  of  sin.  God  has  no  answer  for  them.  No  answer 

95  Recorded  by  D.  G.  Raskins  in  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson :    His  Maternal  An 
cestors,  p.  130. 


68  EMERSON 

in  words  can  reply  to  a  question  of  things"  (II,  266).  He  meanj^that 
that  which  is  personal  to  each  one  is  not^  the  "soul,"  which  is  "perfect 
and  identical  in  all/\  but  those  later  developed  faculties  of  the  under 
standing,  and  that  therefore  immortality  is  a  question  of  the  "understand 
ing"  and  cannot  be  answered  by  the  "reason." 

In  spite  of  himself,  however,  Emerson  can  not  quite  get  away  from 
the  question  of  a  personal  immortality.  But  beginning  with  doubt  on 
this  subject,96  he  ends  in  utter  negation,  though  he  is  said  to  have  looked 
forward  at  the  time  of  his  death  with  some  hope  of  a  future  recognition. 
Even  in  the  essay  in  which  he  most  constantly  asserts  his  belief,  he  is 
constrained  to  admit  that  he  sees  no  place  for  it  in  his  system :  "I  con 
fess  that  everything  connected  with  our  personality  fails.  Nature  never 
spares  the  individual"  (VIII,  325).  Sometimes  his  faith  rises  to  the 
point  of  saying,  "If  it  is  best  that  conscious  personal  life  shall  continue, 
it  will  continue"  (VIII,  313)  ;  and  he  offers  by  way  of  justification  of 
this  faith  that  "The  ground  of  hope  is  in  the  infinity  of  the  world ;  which 
infinity  reappears  in  every  particle,  the  powers  of  all  society  in  every  in 
dividual,  and  of  all  mind  in  every  mind"  (p.  316)  ;  or,  more  definitely, 
"If  we  follow  it  out,  this  demand  in  our  thought  for  an  ever-onward  ac 
tion  is  the  argument  for  immortality"  (VI,  279).  But  even  this  he  feels 
at  last  is  futile.  "An  individual  body  is  the  momentary  arrest  or  fixation 
of  certain  atoms,  which,  after  performing  compulsory  duty  to  this  en 
chanted  statue,  are  released  again  to  flow  in  the  currents  of  the  world. 
An  individual  mind  in  like  manner  is  a  fixation  or  momentary  eddy  in 
which  certain  services  and  powers  are  taken  up  and  minister  in  petty 
niches  and  localities,  and  then,  being  released,  return  to  the  unbounded 
soul  of  the  world"  (XII,  25). 

This  is  his  last  word,  in  his  final  excursion  in  philosophy,  The 
Natural  History  of  Intellect.  There  is  something  strangely  sad  about 
this  last  philosophical  attempt  of  a  man  who  had  built  his  whole  life's 
argument  on  the  belief  that  he  could  know,  as  he  clings  bravely  to  the 
memory  of  his  better  insights,  and  struggles  forward  with  the  broken 
remnants  of  a  philosophy  which  had  once  been  so  full  of  bright  promise 
and  eager  hope. 

We  find,  then,  that  Emerson's  doctrine  of  intuition  is  futile  also  in 
the  purer  realm  of  religion.  The  best  that  Emerson  can  say  is  the  best 
that  we  all  say,  and  no  more.  To  prove  the  existence  of  a  personal  God 
would  rob  us  of  our  right  of  faith,  which  needs  only  that  philosophy  shall 

96  At  twenty-three  he  writes  in  his  Journal  (II,  178)  :  "I  believe  myself  im 
mortal.  The  beam  of  the  balance  trembles,  to  be  sure,  but  settles  always  on  the 
right  side.  For  otherwise  all  things  look  so  silly.  The  sun  is  silly  .  .  ." 


4 
THE  RELIGIOUS   IMPLICATIONS  OF   EMERSON'S  PHILOSOPHY  69 

not  preclude  the  possibility. — as  surely  it  does  not ;  to  prove  human 
freedom  and  responsibility  is  to  prove  what  in  the  heart  of  us  we  all 
know,  however  hardened  determinists  we  may  clam  to  be ;  to  prove  im 
mortality  would  be  only,  at  best,  the  deifying  of  Paley,  the  putting  of  a 
prudential  motive  on  all  our  conduct.  In  applying  his  "philosophy  of  .in 
tuition"  to  the  great  postulates  of  religion,  Emerson  was  only  proving 
again  the  final  negative  answer  to  the  Transcendental  Dialectic. 

We  have  tested  Emerson  by  the  highest  standards.  May  we  not 
conclude  that  he  failed  to  do,  in  the  great  guesses  of  philosophy  and  re 
ligion,  only  what  the  greatest  philosophers  themselves  have  failed  to  do, 
namely,  to  give  a  definite  answer  to  our  fundamental  problems?  Before 
he  meets  his  final  failure  he  comes,  it  seems  to  me,  very  far  along  the 
road  of  a  consistent  idealism ;  and  in  the  account  that  he  does  take  of  the 
nature  and  workings  of  intuition  he  comes  as  close  as  anyone  has  yet 
come  to  the  making  of  Mysticism  a  philosophy;  and  he  makes  the  one 
definite  contribution  of  showing  why,  if  Mysticism  be  true,  it  cannot  be 
explained  in  philosophical  terms.  The  acceptance  of  Emerson's  philos 
ophy  is,  like  that  philosophy  itself,  a  piece  of  pure  mysticism.  It  may  be 
recognition  but  it  is  never  conviction.  However  sober  and  well  ordered 
his  argument  may  be  for  a  time,  it  is  always  the  religious  instinct  that 
is  speaking,  and  only  he  who  hath  ears  to  hear  can  receive  the  message. 
In  Emerson's  own  poetic  language,  "Jove  nods  to  Jove  from  behind  each 
of  us." 

It  is  in  this  very  fact  that  his  greatness  lies.  If  he  had  made  a  more 
philosophical  appeal,  I  doubt  if  his  importance  would  be  half  so  great. 
For  as  it  is  the  religious  instinct  that  receives  such  truths,  so  religious 
men  are  always  the  discoverers  and  prophets, — never  philosophers,  or 
those  whose  appeal  is  to  the  intellect  primarily.  It  is  on  account  of  its 
religious  nature  that  the  appeal  of  mysticism,  either  at  first  or  second 
hand,  is  so  overpowering  when  it  conies. 


70  EMERSON 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

EMERSON'S   ETHICS:     THE   MORAL   LAW;    ORIGIN   OF   THE   VIRTUES; 

OPTIMISM. 

I  have  attempted  to  show  that  Emerson  in  his  own  peculiar  and  orig 
inal  way  worked  through  the  central  problem  of  metaphysics  till  he  came 
to  the  Dark  Tower  itself.  At  least  I  am  not  aware  that  any  thinker  has 
actually  gone  farther  with  pure  philosophic  theory  than  did  Emerson  in 
his  deepest  insights ;  though  of  course  when  the  masters  have  broken 
the  way  the  mere  learner  may  easily  come  as  far.  Emerson's  philosophy 
is  negative  not  only  in  that  it  goes  sufficiently  far  and  with  sufficient  con 
sistency  to  show  that  a  rational  explanation  of  the  universe  is  impossible 
along  Transcendental  lines,  but  more  positively  negative,  so  to  speak,  in 
that  it  leads  inevitably  to  the  conclusion  that  the  final  and  highest  result 
of  such  philosophizing  is  the  giving  up  of  philosophy  for  questions  of 
more  practical  value.  And  so  Transcendentalism,  as  I  said  at  the  begin 
ning  of  this  essay,  means  little  or  nothing  apart  from  its  practical  appli 
cation. 

Emerson's  thinking  along  the  lines  of  ethics  is  not  to  be  taken  as 
the  mere  talk  of  a  cultured  gentleman.  It  is  a  consistent  part  of  his 
idealism.  Blandly  superficial  as  he  is  so  often  and  as  he  seems  so  habit 
ually,  he  still  has  sufficient  depth  to  make  us  return  again  and  again  with 
increased  respect  for  the  calm  majesty  of  his  thought  and  the  high  con 
sistency  of  his  purpose: — -the  purpose  of  bringing  to  the  average  think 
ing  man  a  vital  concern  with  these  subjects, — of  these  subjects  so  sterile 
and  unprofitable  in  the  hands  of  our  technical  theorists.  But  here  Emer 
son's  work  commands  our  greater  respect,  since  in  his  thinking  along  these 
lines  he  was  more  of  an  anticipator  of  later  writers  than  in  his  philosophy 
he  was  an  unconscious  follower  of  the  thinkers  before  him. 

But  the  same  things  which  have  led  men  to  pass  by  Emerson's  phil 
osophy  so  lightly  have  prevented  their  giving  to  his  ethics  the  attention 
it  deserves.  Since  Emerson's  day  we  have  mortgaged  to  our  scholars  the 
entire  estate  of  learning ;  we  have  become  trespassers  if  we  dare  to  think 
outside  the  schools.  Emerson  dared ;  and  the  makers  of  our  scholastic 
caste  have  snubbed  him  roundly  for  it.  On  the  other  hand,  to  those  who 
would  gladly  accept  him  as  a  writer  on  ethics,  even  while  denying  him 
the  rank  of  a  philosopher,  his  manner  of  stating  his  principles  offers  the 


EMERSON'S  ETHICS  71 

same  obstacles.  His  method  is  still  statement  and  restatement  of  his  cen 
tral  point  of  view,  always  the  same  though  seen  in  many  different  aspects, 
never  bolstered  up  by  deduction  or  burdened  by  logical  proof — impert 
inent  to  one  who  sees  the  fact  as  fact.97  We  should  now  have,  in  conse 
quence,  an  equal  task  in  educing  his  theory  from  his  poetic  form  were  it 
not  that  his  ethical  teachings  are  an  obvious  corollary  of  his  idealism. 
There  is  no  more  in  Emerson's  ethics  than  the  translation  and  elabora 
tion  of  his  philosophical  dicta  in  ethical  terms ;  indeed  the  ethics  implies 
the  philosophy  just  as  much  as  the  philosophy  entails  the  ethics. 

The  coming  to  the  plane  of  consciousness,  it  will  be  remembered,  is 
regarded  by  Emerson  as  the  "fall  of  man"  (III,  77).  Spirit  no  longer 
works  according  to  its  own  perfect  laws.  "And  the  blindness  of  the  in 
tellect  begins  wrhen  it  would  be  something  of  itself.  The  weakness  of  the 
will  begins  when  the  individual  would  be  something  of  himself"  (II, 
255).  This  doctrine  of  the  "lapse,"  which  Bronson  Alcott  had  absorbed 
probably  from  his  reading  of  Plotinus  and  had  poured  forth  in  his  solemn 
manner  into  Emerson's  credulous  ears,  was  applied  by  the  latter  un 
flinchingly  to  his  newly  formulated  theory  of  evolution,  and  thus  formed 
the  basis  of  his  ethics.  We  have  the  attainment  of  a  moral  will  at  the 
expense  of  innocence.  And  the  law  applies  not  only  to  us  but  to  all  cre 
ation.  "The  men,  though  young,  having  tasted  the  first  drop  from  the 
cup  of  thought,  are  already  dissipated ;  the  maples  and  ferns  are  still  un- 
corrupt;  yet  no  doubt  when  they  come  to  consciousness  they  too  will 
curse  and  swear"  (III,  174). 

But  back  of  individual  freedom  are  the  fast  laws  of  fate,  as  we  call 
all  operation  of  law  in  the  outer  world  (VI,  211).  Of  these  laws,  as  I 
have  already  noted,  the  highest  and  all-inclusive  is  the  moral  law.  The 
moral  law,  which  in  us  is  the  moral  sentiment  (/£.),  is  the  very  ground 
work  of  our  being,  and  thus  not  only  we  but  in  a  deep  sense  total  nature 
is  moral.  "For  though  the  new  element  of  freedom  and  an  individual 
has  been  admitted,  yet  the  primordial  atoms  are  prefigured  and  predes 
tined  to  moral  issues,  are  in  search  of  justice,  and  ultimate  right  is  done" 
(VI,  209). 

In  remembering  these  two  complementary  principles,  the  whole 
ethics  of  Emerson  becomes  apparent  at  a  glance.  Since  the  universe 
is  essentially  moral,  "Virtue  is  the  adherence  in  action  to  the  nature  of 
things"  (II,  151)  ;  which  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  a  man  pos 
sesses  all  virtues  when  he  is  possessed  by  the  great  Source  of  all. 
he  have  found  his  centre,  the  Deity  will  shine  through  him"  (II,  269). 
By  this  we  are  raised  "not  into  a  particular  virtue,  but  into  the  region  of 

97  Compare  W.  T.  Harris  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  vol.  L,  pp.  238  ff. 


72  EMERSON 

all  the  virtues  ...  so  there  is  a  kind  of  descent  and  accommodation  felt 
when  we  leave  speaking  of  moral  nature  to  urge  a  virtue  which  it  en 
joins.  .  .  .  The  heart  which  abandons  itself  to  the  Supreme  Mind  finds 
itself  related  to  all  its  works,  and  will  travel  a  royal  road  to  particular 
knowledges  and  powers"  (II,  258). 

The  means  to  the  attainment  of  this  great  end,  this  summum  bonum, 
so  far  as  it  requires  volitional  and  hence  moral  action  on  our  part,  is 
obedience.  "We  need  only  obey"  (II,  132).  Obedience  is,  therefore,  in 
a  sense,  the  only  virtue,  and  even  it  is  not  so  much  a  virtue  as  an  "act  of 
piety."  While  an  uncompromising  self-surrender  is  the  one  condition  to 
this  Emersonian- "self-realization,"  yet  there  is  no  scourging  of  the  flesh, 
or  triumphant  rising  of  the  spirit  from  victory  to  victory.  It  is  here  that 
Emerson's  Unitarianism  asserts  itself  in  opposition  to  the  earlier  Congre 
gationalism.  "To  the  well-born  child  all  the  virtues  are  natural  and  not 
painfully  acquired"  (II,  259).  Like  the  later  teachers  of  the  "gospel  of 
relaxation,"  Emerson  would  have  us  yield  ourselves  naturally  and  with 
perfect  trust  and  rest,  to  the  great  power  within  us  which  sustains  us  and 
which  "constitutes  us  men." 

"In  like  manner  our  moral  nature  is  vitiated  by  any  interference  of 
our  will.  People  represent  virtue  as  a  struggle,  and  take  to  themselves 
great  airs  upon  their  attainments,  and  the  question  is  everywhere  vexed 
when  a  noble  nature  is  commended,  whether  the  man  is  not  better  who 
strives  with  temptation.  But  there  is  no  merit  in  the  matter.  Either  God 
is  there  or  he  is  not  there.  .  .  . 

"Not  less  conspicuous  is  the  preponderance  of  nature  over  will  in  all 
practical  life.  .  .  .  That  which  externally  seemed  will  and  immovable- 
ness  was  willingness  and  self-annihilation.  .  .  . 

"The  lesson  is  forcibly  taught  by  these  observations  that  our  life 
might  be  much  easier  and  simpler  than  we  make  it ;  that  the  world  might 
be  a  happier  place  than  it  is ;  that  there  is  no  need  of  struggles,  convul 
sions,  and  despairs,  of  the  wringing  of  the  hands  and  the  gnashing  of  the 
teeth ;  that  we  miscreate  our  own  evils.  We  interfere  with  the  optimism 
of  nature"  (II,  127-129). 

But  this  is  only  one  aspect  of  the  matter.  Emerson's  main  conten 
tion  in  his  first  little  book,  Nature,  is  that  Discipline — the  moral  edu 
cation  of  man — may  be  "The  Final  Cause  of  the  Universe."  On  this 
seemingly  contradictory  point  of  view  he  insists  again,  thirty  years  later, 
in  a  second  essay  on  "Character":  "On  the  perpetual  conflict  between 
the  dictate  of  this  universal  mind  and  the  wishes  and  interests  of  the 
individual,  the  moral  discipline  of  life  is  built.  The  one  craves  a  private 
benefit,  which  the  other  requires  him  to  renounce  out  of  respect  to  the  ab 
solute  good"  (X,  96).  And  with  a  psychological  insight  as  remarkable  in 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  VIRTUES  73 

Emerson  as  it  is  rare,  he  tells  how  this  morality  dependent  upon  freedom 
is  produced.  "But  insight  is  not  will,  nor  is  affection  will.  .  .  .  There 
must  be  a  fusion  of  these  two  to  generate  the  energy  of  will"  (VI,  33). 
I  might  well  have  paused  over  the  metaphysical  and  psychological  sig 
nificance  of  this  sentence ;  but  I  have  chosen  to  give  it  only  its  ethical 
bearing,  since  it  is  not  an  integral  part  of  Emerson's  Transcendentalism. 

Of  the  origin  of  conscience,  Emerson  has  therefore  this  account  to 
offer:  "I  see  the  unity  of  thought  and  of  morals  running  through  all 
animated  nature ;  there  is  no  difference  of  quality,  but  only  of  more  and 
less.  .  .  .  The  man  down  in  nature  occupies  himself  in  guarding,  in  feed 
ing,  in  warming  and  multiplying  his  body,  and,  as  long  as  he  knows  no 
more,  we  justify  him;  but  presently  a  mystic  change  is  wrought,  a  new 
perception  opens,  and  he  is  made  a  citizen  of  the  world  of  souls ;  he  feels 
what  is  called  duty;  he  is  aware  that  he  owes  a  higher  allegiance  to*do 
and  live  as  a  good  member  of  this  universe.  In  the  measure  in  which  he 
has  this  sense  he  is  a  man,  rises  to  the  universal  life.  The  high  intellect 
is  absolutely  at  one  with  moral  nature"  (X,  178). 

From  this  account  of  the  origin  of  the  virtues,  their  classification 
becomes  an  easy  matter.  "There  is  no  virtue  which  is  final"  (II,  295). 
"The  same  law  of  eternal  procession  ranges  all  that  we  call  the  virtues, 
and  extinguishes  each  in  the  light  of  a  better"  (II,  293).  There  is,  then, 
a  hierarchy  in  the  virtues,  the  lower  and  simpler,  of  course,  being  the 
earliest  produced.  We  pass  from  the  individual  virtue  of  physical  cour 
age,  which  is  the  mere  "affection"  of  love  joined  with  the  "insight"of  its 
universal  value  in  opposition  to  and  triumph  over  the  self -conserving  in 
stinct  of  fear;  to  the  personal  virtues  of  chastity  and  temperance,  by 
which  we  improve  our  own  natures  and  make  them  more  effective  to 
universal  ends  at  the  expense  of  and  triumph  over  our  natural  appetites 
and  inclinations ;  to  the  third  and  final  type  of  virtue,  exemplified  in  jus 
tice  and  love,  which  are  the  public  virtues,  and  show  the  active  opera 
tion  of  virtue  where  it  exists  at  its  fullest — in  our  relation  to  others.  The 
public  virtue,  justice,  will  of  course  have  its  own  stages  of  development 
in  the  history  of  civilization.  "The  civil  history  of  men  might  be  traced 
by  the  successive  ameliorations  as  marked  in  higher  moral  generaliza 
tions ; — virtue  meaning  physical  courage,  then  chastity  and  temperance, 
then  justice  and  love; — bargains  of  kings  with  peoples  of  certain  rights 
to  certain  classes,  then  of  rights  to  masses, — then  at  last  came  the  day 
when,  as  historians  rightly  tell,  the  nerves  of  the  world  were  electrified 
by  the  proclamation  that  all  men  are  born  free  and  equal"  (X,  181). 

But  if  the  one  condition  to  the  attainment  of  virtue  is  personal  free 
dom,  its  prime  essential  is  a  certain  austerity  of  manner.  To  the  highest 


74  EMERSON 

success  ease  and  comfort  are  fatal.  "He  who  aims  high  must  dread  an 
easy  home  and  popular  manners"  (VI,  155).  As  with  Hegel,  there  is  no 
virtue  but  in  the  overcoming  of  vice.  "Nature  is  upheld  by  antagonism. 
.  .  .  without  enemies,  no  hero.  .  .  .  the  glory  of  character  is  in  affront 
ing  the  horrors  of  depravity  to  draw  thence  new  nobilities  of  power"  (VI, 
242).  "Let  us  replace  sentimentalism  by  realism,"  cries  our  idealist  and 
"dreamer"  (VI,  206).  "Nature,  as  we  know  her,  is  no  saint.  .  .  .  Her 
darlings,  the  great,  the  strong,  the  beautiful,  are  not  children  of  our  law ; 
do  not  come  out  of  the  Sunday  School,  nor  weigh  their  food,  nor  punctu 
ally  keep  the  commandments"  (III,  66).  From  this  "realism"  the  ethical 
deduction  is  inevitable : 

"We  wish  to  learn  philosophy  by  rote,  and  play  at  heroism.  But  the 
wiser  God  says,  Take  the  shame,  the  poverty  and  the  penal  solitude  that 
belfing  to  truth-speaking.  Try  the  rough  water  as  well  as  the  smooth. 
Rough  water  can  teach  lessons  worth  knowing.  When  the  state  is  un 
quiet,  personal  qualities  are  more  than  ever  decisive.  Fear  not  a  revolu 
tion  which  will  constrain  you  to  live  five  years  in  one.  Don't  be  so  tender 
at  making  an  enemy  now  and  then.  Be  willing  to  go  to  Coventry  some 
times,  and  let  the  populace  bestow  on  you  their  coldest  contempts.  The 
finished  man  of  the  world  must  eat  of  every  apple  once.  He  must  hold 
his  hatreds  also  at  arm's  length,  and  not  remember  spite.  He  has  neither 
friends  nor  enemies,  but  values  men  only  as  channels  of  power"  (VI, 

155). 

We  are  now  ready  to  confront  the  problem  of  Emerson's  reconcilia 
tion,  if  he  has  one,  of  his  two  main  ethical  doctrines, — the  absence  of  all 
struggle  in  the  attainment  of  all  virtue  in  self-surrender,  and  the  "per 
petual  conflict"  of  the  will,  upon  which  the  very  essence  of  morality  is 
based,  and  by  which  the  separate  virtues  were  produced.  Emerson's  own 
answer,  if  he  were  brought  face  to  face  with  it,  might  be  one  of  those 
maddening,  frank  admissions  of  both  sides  of  a  flat  contradiction.  "This 
is  true,  and  that  other  is  true.  But  our  geometry  cannot  span  these  ex 
treme  points  and  reconcile  them"  (VI,  10).  There  is,  however,  in  this 
case,  as  so  often,  only  a  seeming  contradiction.  The  inconsistency  is  the 
same  as  in  the  case  of  universal  spirit  and  individual  selfhood  and  free 
dom,  and  is  capable  of  a  corresponding  resolution.  "From  this  transfer 
of  the  world  into  the  consciousness,  this  beholding  of  all  things  in  the 
mind,  follow  easily  his  [the  idealist's]  whole  ethics.  It  is  simpler  to  be 
self-dependent.  The  height,  the  deity  of  man  is  to  be  self-sustained,  to 
need  no  gift,  no  foreign  force"  (I,  315).  And  from  his  idealism,  con 
sistently  also,  comes  his  practical  ethics :  "Do  not  cumber  yourself  with 
fruitless  pains  to  mend  and  remedy  remote  effects ;  let  the  soul  be  erect^ 
and  all  things  will  go  well"  (/£.).  On  the  other  hand,  from  the  equally 


OPTIMISM  75 

primary  fact  of  human  freedom  comes  of  necessity  the  need  of  sin  and 
struggle.    "In  morals,  wild  liberty  breeds  iron  conscience"  (VI,  65). 

But  as  each  virtue  is  extinguished  "in  the  light  of  a  better,"  the  final 
virtue  will  be,  obviously,  as  with  Spencer,  the  rising  to  a  supra-virtuous 
plane;  virtue  will  be  "its  own  reward"  because  it  is  no  longer  difficult 
but  natural  and  inevitable.  Each  intermediate  good  involves  its  struggle 
of  will,  but  the  "highest  good"  is  when  the  will  negates  itself,  which  is 
the  last  step  in  our  "self-realization."  The  individual  must  "lose  his  life" 
in  the  great  Reality  in  order  "to  find  it."  This,  on  the  one  hand,  is  no 
more  than  an  ethical  rendering  of  the  religion  of  Jesus,  of  the  philsophy 
of  Hegel,  of  the  poetic  insight  of  Goethe.  But  on  the  other  hand,  Emer 
son  is  as  thorough-going  and  up-to-date  a  Eudasmonist  as  any  among 
us  ;98  though  we  might  perhaps  coin  for  his  ethics  the  name  of  Eleuther- 
ianism,  since  the  self-realization  culminates  in  perfect  freedom,  supra- 
volitional,  as  the  final  and  highest  good.  And  in  this  I  find  no  contra 
diction,  but  an  ethical  insight  wise  and  far-reaching. 

"And  so  I  think  that  the  last  lesson  of  life,  the  choral  song  which 
rises  from  all  elements  and  all  angels,  is  a  voluntary  obedience,  a  necessi 
tated  freedom.  Man  is  made  of  the  same  atoms  as  the  world  is,  he  shares 
the  same  impressions,  predispositions,  and  destiny.  When  his  mind  is  il 
luminated,  when  his  heart  is  kind,  he  throws  himself  joyfully  into  the 
sublime  order,  and  does,  with  knowledge,  what  the  stones  do  by  struc 
ture"  (VI,  229). 

It  will  be  seen  from  all  this  how  it  is  that  Emerson's  ethics  culmin 
ates  in  so  absolute  an  optimism.  Professor  Santayana  says  that  Emerson 
had  no  sufficient  warrant  for  his  optimism,  that  it  was  only  "a  pious  tra 
dition"  from  the  religion  of  his  ancestors,  that  survived  in  him  as  an 
instinct ;  and  suggests  that  he  allowed  "his  will  and  his  conscience  to  be 
hypnotized  by  the  spectacle  of  a  necessary  evolution."  Mr.  Inge,  also, 
though  writing  in  a  wholly  different  strain,  tells  us  that  there  is  no  com 
fort  in  Emerson's  optimism,  because  it  is  blind  ;100  and  many  others,  after 
reading  the  fiat  absurdities  in  the  over-famous  essay  on  "Compensation," 
have  felt  that  Emerson's  optimism  could  be  nothing  but  a  wilful  disre 
garding  of  the  facts  of  life.  Even  his  fellow  Transcendentalists,  especi 
ally  Margaret  Fuller,  felt  a  certain  "aloofness"  about  him,  and  accused 
him  of  never  coming  close  to  reality.  To  a  certain  extent  there  was  a 


98  Hedge  regards  Emerson  simply  as  a  Stoic  because  of  the  "emphasis  with 
which  he  affirms  right  to  be  the  absolute  good,  right  for  its  own  sake,  not  for  any 
foreign  benefit."     (Literary  World,  XI,  176.) 

99  Poetry  and  Religion,  pp.  228,  229. 

100  Christian  Mysticism,  p.  321. 


76  EMERSON 

temperamental  serenity  about  Emerson  which  went  far  to  make  the  op 
timism  of  his  daily  life;  he  preferred  always  to  put  the  bright  side  for 
ward;  yet  no  one  was  ever  more  deeply  concerned  with  "things  as  they 
are,"  or  faced  more  unflinchingly  or  with  keener  sympathy  the  tragedy 
and  imperfections  of  life.  But  these  things  were  to  him  partial,  and  he 
kept  his  eyes  fastened  on  the  totality,  which  he  still  judged  to  be  good. 
That  which  distinguishes  Emerson  from  his  fellow  Transcendentalists 
is  not  absence  of  the  emotional  but  presence  of  the  intellectual. 

It  is  worth  noting  that  Emerson  contends  always  that  "Nature  is 
reckless  of  the  individual"  (VI,  133),  and  that  if  "the  final  cause  of  the 
world  is  to  make  holy  or  wise  or  beautiful  men,  we  see  that  it  has  not 
succeeded"  (I,  192).  In  justice  to  this  neglected  side  of  Emerson's  view 
of  things,  I  may  be  pardoned  for  quoting  his  splendid  and  stirring  con 
demnation  of  the  aspirations  and  pleasures  of  men : 

"Read  alternately  in  natural  and  in  civil  history,  a  treatise  of  astron 
omy,  for  example,  with  a  volume  of  French  Memoir es  pour  sermr. 
When  we  have  spent  our  wonder  in  computing  this  wasteful  hospitality 
with  which  boon  nature  turns  off  new  firmaments  without  end  into  her 
wide  common,  as  fast  as  the  madrepores  make  coral, — suns  and  planets 
hospitable  to  souls, — and  then  shorten  the  sight  to  look  into  this  court  of 
Louis  Quatorze,  and  see  the  game  that  is  played  there, — duke  and  mar 
shal,  abbe  and  madame, — a  gambling  table  where  each  is  laying  traps  for 
the  other,  where  the  end  is  ever  by  some  lie  or  fetch  to  outwit  your  rival 
and  ruin  him  with  this  solemn  fop  in  wig  and  stars, — the  king ; — one  can 
hardly  help  asking*  if  this  planet  is  a  fair  specimen  of  the  so  generous  as 
tronomy,  and  if  so,  whether  the  experiment  have  not  failed,  and  whether 
it  be  quite  worth  while  to  make  more,  and  glut  the  innocent  space  with 
so  poor  an  article"  (I,  192). 

And  the  mass  of  men  fares  no  better  at  his  hands : 

"In  our  large  cities  the  population  is  godless,  materialized, — no  bond, 
no  fellow-feeling,  no  enthusiasm.  These  are  not  men,  but  hungers, 
thirsts,  fevers  and  appetites  walking.  How  is  it  people  manage  to  live 
on, — so  aimless  as  they  are?  After  their  pepper-corn  aims  are  gained,  it 
seems  as  if  the  lime  in  their  bones  alone  held  them  together,  and  not  any 
worthy  purpose.  There  is  no  faith  in  the  intellectual,  none  in  the  moral 
universe.  ...  In  creeds  never  was  such  levity;  witness  the  heathenisms 
of  Christianity,  the  periodic  'revivals/  the  Millennium  mathematics,  the 
peacock  ritualism,  the  retrogression  to  Popery,  the  maundering  of  Mor 
mons,  the  squalor  of  Mesmerism,  the  deliration  of  rappings,  the  rat  and 
mouse  revelation,  thumps  in  table-drawers,  and  black  art.  The  architec 
ture,  the  music,  the  prayer,  partake  of  the  madness ;  the  arts  sink  into 
shift  and  make-believe.  Not  knowing  what  to  do,  we  ape  our  ancestors ; 
the  churches  stagger  backward  to  the  mummeries  of  the  Dark  Ages" 
(VI,  199,  200). 


OPTIMISM  77 

But  back  of  all  this,  which  is  surely  a  sufficient  account  of  the  dark 
side  of  life,  the  optimism  of  Emerson  is  unshaken.  "In  front  of  these 
sinister  facts,  the  first  lesson  of  history  is  the  good  of  evil"  (VI,  240). 
It  is  the  method  of  nature  to  play  off  vice  against  vice.  "Most  of  the 
great  results  of  history  are  brought  about  by  discreditable  means"  (VI, 
243).  To  Emerson  in  his  more  poetic  mood,  the  purple  mountain  and 
the  ancient  wood  declare 

"That  Night  or  Day,  that  Love  or  Crime, 
Leads  all  souls  to  the  Good"  (IX,  78). 

Emerson  had  as  much  faith  as  Horace  Bushnell  in  the  "moral  uses  of 
dark  things."  "In  our  life  and  culture  everything  is  worked  up  and 
comes  in  use, — passion,  war,  revolt,  bankruptcy,  and  not  less,  folly  and 
blunders,  insult,  ennui  and  bad  company"  (VI,  249).  This  attitude  of 
Emerson  is  well  illustrated  by  an  incident  recorded  by  Edward  Everett 
Hale.101  They  were  considering  a  college  youth  who  had  taken  many 
honors  and  established  a  brilliant  record.  "I  did  not  know  he  was  so  fine 
a  fellow,"  said  Emerson.  "And  now,  if  something  will  fall  out  amiss, — 
if  he  should  be  unpopular  with  his  class,  or  if  his  father  should  fail  in 
business,  or  if  some  other  misfortune  can  befall  him, — all  will  be  well." 
This  was  not  cynicism  or  paradox  but  sincere  conviction. 

The  first  and  most  obvious  argument  for  Emerson's  optimism  is  that 
it  is  the  ethical  reading  of  the  great  fact  of  evolution.  David  Lee 
Maulsby,  in  a  doctoral  dissertation  on  The  Contribution  of  Emerson  to 
Literature  (1911),  makes  Emerson's  "unqualified  optimism"  a  corollary 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  immanence  of  God ;  Professor  James  finds  it  one 
of  the  philosophical  directions  of  his  states  of  mystical  ecstasy;102  Aug 
ustine  Birrell  considers  that  it  "rests  on  his  theory  of  compensation";10* 
W.  Robertson  Nicoll  calls  it  a  "direct  inference"  from  certain  of  Emer 
son's  "propositions"  which  seem  to  me  rather  to  be  derived  from  his  op 
timism  than  to  have  given  rise  to  it  ;104  William  F.  Dana  believes  Emer 
son's  optimism  purely  intellectual  and  not  at  all  derived  from  Christian 
dogma;105  Francis  Grierson  states  that  "the  explanation  of  Emerson's 
optimism  lies  in  his  intellectual  aloofness,  his  mental  indifference  to 
things  beneath  the  plane  on  which  he  lived."  106  For  all  these  divergent 
views,  and  others,  warrant  can  be  found  in  the  essays.  But  only  in  his 

101  Works,  vol.  VIII,  p.  256. 

102  Varieties  of  Religious  Experience,  p.  416. 

103  Emerson  :    a  Lecture,  p.  41. 

10*  North  American  Review,  CLXXVI,  678. 

105  The  Optimism  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  p.  53. 

106  The  Celtic  Temperament,  p.  93. 


78  EMERSON 

evolution  doctrine  can  I  find  an  ethical  basis  for  this  famous  optimism 
which  everyone  feels  he  must  explain.  As  such,  at  least,  it  needs  neither 
explanation  nor  apology.  "We  only  insist  that  the  man  meliorate,  and 
that  the  plant  grow  upward  and  convert  the  base  into  the  better  nature" 
(VI,  246) ;  "Meliorism  is  the  law.  The  cruelest  foe  is  a  masked  bene 
factor"  (X,  182).  Yet  in  the  last  analysis  this  argument  for  optimism 
also  resolves  itself  into  a  mere  statement  of  larger  faith : 

"If  the  Divine  Providence  has  hid  from  men  neither  disease  nor 
deformity  nor  corrupt  society,  but  has  stated  itself  out  in  passions,  in 
war,  in  trade,  in  the  love  of  power  and  pleasure,  in  hunger  and  need,  in 
tyrannies,  literatures  and  arts, — let  us  not  be  so  nice  that  we  cannot  write 
these  facts  down  coarsely  as  they  stand,  or  doubt  but  there  is  a  counter- 
statement  as  ponderous,  which  we  can  arrive  at,  and  which,  being  put, 
will  make  all  square.  The  solar  system  has  no  anxiety  about  its  reputa 
tion,  and  the  credit  of  truth  and  honesty  is  as  safe ;  nor  have  I  any  fear 
that  a  skeptical  bias  can  be  given  by  leaning  hard  on  the  sides  of  fate,  of 
practical  power,  or  of  trade,  which  the  doctrine  of  Faith  cannot  down- 
weigh"  (VI,  194). 

From  this  it  would  appear  that  optimism  is  only  another  name  for 
faith.  If  so,  Professor  Santayana  is  quite  right  in  saying  that  there  is  no 
philosophical  basis  for  the  optimism  of  Emerson,  but  that  it  was  due  to 
his  religious  instinct.  One  sometimes  wonders  if  optimism  is  not  always 
either  temperamental  or  religious  in  its  origin.  But  this  does  not  in  the 
least  imply  that  it  is  illogical,  or  unwarranted,  or  "blind."  Indeed  the  ul 
timate  warrant  of  optimism  is  well  put  by  Emerson  in  one  crisp,  ringing 
sentence:  V."We  grant  that  human  life  is  mean,  but  how  did  we  find  out 
that  it  was  rnean?^  (II,  251).  If  human  nature  is  wilful  and  weak,  still 
it  is  human  nature  that  sees  this  and  condemns  it ;  and  however  good 
humanity  might  grow,  the  pain  of  imperfection  and  the  haunting  ideal 
of  an  ever  unrealized  good  must  still  be  in  us  to  keep  the  old  world  going. 
"Thus  journeys  the  mighty  Ideal  before  us;  it  never  was  known  to  fall 
into  the  rear.  No  man  ever  came  to  an  experience  which  was  satiating, 
but  his  good  is  tidings  of  a  better.  Onward  and  onward!"  (Ill,  76). 
Or  again : 

"The  fiend  that  man  harries, 
Is  love  of  the  best"  (IX,  n)  ; 

and  in  the  pain  of  this  is  our  perpetual  salvation. 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  that  there  is  considerable  point  in  making 
the  distinction  that  there  are  three  stages  in  Emerson's  optimism,  corre 
sponding  to  the  three  stages  in  the  development  of  the  individual :  there 
is  the  optimism  of  the  senses,  the  pessimism  of  the  understanding,  and 


OPTIMISM  79 

the  optimism  of  the  reason.107  The  first  stage  is  illustrated  by  Emerson's 
untiring  insistence  upon  the  beauty  of  nature;  the  second  is  seen  in  the 
conflict  of  will  with  things  as  they  are, — a  conflict  foredoomed  to  failure ; 
the  third  is  found  when  we  consider  this  immediate  need  of  action  in  its 
relation  to  the  great  scheme  of  things.  Optimism  is  still  a  matter  of 
faith,  but  it  is  a  faith  founded  upon  reason.  In  his  essay  on  "The  Sov 
ereignty  of  Ethics"  Emerson  writes : 

"Thus  a  sublime  confidence  is  fed  at  the  bottom  of  the  heart  that, 
in  spite  of  appearances,  in  spite  of  malignity  and  blind  self-interest  living 
for  the  moment,  an  eternal,  beneficent  necessity  is  always  bringing  things 
right ;  and,  though  we  should  fold  our  arms, — which  we  cannot  do,  for 
our  duty  requires  us  to  be  the  very  hands  of  this  guiding  sentiment,  and 
work  in  the  present  moment, — the  evils  we  suffer  will  at  last  end  them 
selves  through  the  incessant  opposition  of  Nature  to  everything  hurtful" 
(X,  182). 

107  J.  F.  Button,  in  the  Unitarian  Revieiv,  vol.  XXXV,  p.  132. 


80  EMERSON 


CHAPTER  IX. 

EMERSON'S  CONTRIBUTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY:     THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  THE 
STATE;  THE  BROOK  FARM  IDEA;   THEORY  OF  EDUCATION. 

No  one  can  have  a  fundamental  philosophy  dominating  his  entire 
thought,  and  write  upon  the  subjects  of  art  and  society,  without  imply 
ing  more  or  less  of  an  Esthetics  and  a  Sociology.  But  these,  with  Emer 
son,  are  mere  corollaries  which  might  be  deduced  from  his  philosophy  if 
he  had  written  no  word  on  either  subject.  He  himself,  though  from  the 
first  he  showed  a  genuine  interest  in  these  matters,  seems  to  have  become 
conscious  of  how  his  ideas  had  formulated  regarding  them  after  his 
prime  creative  impulse  had  somewhat  spent  itself  in  the  working  out  of 
his  idealism;  and  hence  we  find  separate  essays  devoted  rather  to  the 
actual  results  of  his  thinking  than  to  a  tentative  working  out  of  his  ideas 
as  they  came  to  him,  which  is  his  usual  method  in  treating  of  philosophic 
problems.  His  late  and  somewhat  commonplace  essay  on  Civilization 
(VII,  23-37),  f°r  example,  deals  directly  with  the  subject  matter  of 
Sociology  with  a  definiteness  of  system  and  order  which  shows  that 
Emerson  was  merely  recalling  and  restating  opinions  which  had  long 
been  familiar  to  him;  and  much  the  same  thing  will  be  found  true  of  his 
various  essays  on  art  and  beauty.  Yet  as  one  gives  his  attention  to  what 
Emerson  does  actually  say  in  the  province  of  Sociology,108  he  becomes 
again  surprised  at  the  rigid  consistency  of  his  thinking,  and  at  the  depth 
of  it. 

There  are  two  principles  at  the  basis  of  Emerson's  democracy:  (i) 
the  Universal  Mind  is  open  to  all  men,  hence  all  men  have  a  divine  right 
to  their  opinions;  and  (2)  the  great  (that  is,  "representative")  man  is 
he  who  is  most  open  to  receive  truth,  while  the  many — the  mob — are 
"blind  mouths" ;  so  that  property,  culture,  even  aristocracy  of  a  sort  are 
essential  to  any  true  democracy.  In  several  articles  which  have  appeared 
in  various  periodicals,  it  has  been  said  that  Emerson  was1  like  Carlyle  in 
his  attitude  toward  the  man  of  genius.  I  do  not  see  how  anyone  who  had 
read  enough  of  Emerson  to  venture  a  printed  opinion  could  hold  such  a 
view.  Julian  Hawthorne  has  the  right  of  it  in  this  instance :  "He  was  no 
hero-worshipper,  like  Carlyle.  A  hero  was,  to  him,  not  so  much  a  power- 

108  I  use  the  word  in  its  broadest  sense. 


EMERSON'S  CONTRIBUTION  TO  SOCIOLOGY  81 

ful  and  dominating  personality,  as  a  relatively  impersonal  instrument  of 
God  for  the  accomplishment  of  some  great  end."  10fl 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  there  was  in  Emerson,  as  there  was  in 
Shakespeare,  an  instinctive  abhorrence  of  the  "vulgar  herd,"  and  a  cor 
responding  predilection  in  favor  of  good  birth  and  breeding.  "For  a 
philosopher,"  said  Walt  Whitman  the  super-democrat,  "Emerson  pos 
sesses  a  singularly  dandified  theory  of  manners."  110  And  indeed  there  is 
much  in  Emerson's  published  utterances  which  might  justify  this  criti 
cism.  ''The  best  are  accused  of  exclusiveness.  It  would  be  more  true  to 
say  they  separate  as  oil  and  water  .  .  .  each  seeking  his  like"  (VII,  19). 
From  his  very  boyhood,  we  find  this  attitude  of  Emerson  recorded  in  his 
Journals.  At  nineteen  he  writes :  "From  the  want  of  an  upper  class  in 
society,  from  the  admirable  republican  equality  \vhich  levels  one  with  all, 
results  a  rudeness  and  sometimes  a  savageness  of  manners  which  is  apt 
to  disgust  a  polished  and  courtly  man"  (J.  I,  147). 

Much  more  which  might  be  quoted  in  this  connection  seems  to  stand 
in  contrast  to  those  more  typically  American  sentiments  which  we  may 
also  find  abundantly  on  Emerson's  pages,  and  again  the  old  charge  of  in 
consistency  confronts  us ;  and  again  it  is  to  be  answered  by  noting  both 
sides  of  the  contradiction  with  their  synthesis  occurring  together  in  the 
same  essay.  Let  me  cite  a  passage  of  each  sort  from  "Considerations  by 
the  Way"  in  the  Conduct  of  Life  volume: 

"Leave  this  hypocritical  prating  about  the  masses.  Masses  are  rude, 
lame,  unmade,  pernicious  in  their  demands  and  influence,  and  need  not  to 
be  flattered  but  to  be  schooled.  .  .  .  The  worst  of  charity  is  that  the  lives 
you  are  asked  to  preserve  are  not  worth  preserving.  Masses !  the  calam 
ity  is  the  masses.  ...  If  government  knew  how,  I  should  like  to  see  it 
check,  not  multiply  the  population.  .  .  .  Away  with  this  hurrah  of 
masses,  and  let  us  have  the  considerate  'vote  of  single  men  spoken  on 
their  honor  and  their  conscience.  In  old  Egypt  it  was  established  law 
that  the  vote  of  a  prophet  be  reckoned  equal  to  a  hundred  hands.  I  think 
jjt  was  much  under-estimated"  (VI,  237). 

Is  this  not  rare  snobbishness  ?     But  look  ten  pages  farther : 

"By  humiliations,  by  defects,  by  loss  of  sympathy,  by  gulfs  of  dis 
parity,  learn  a  wider  truth  and  humanity  than  that  of  a  fine  gentleman. 
A  Fifth- Avenue  landlord,  a  West- End  householder,  is  not  the  highest 
style  of  man;  and  though  good  hearts  and  sound  minds  are  of  no  condi 
tion,  yet  he  who  is  to  be  wise  for  many  must  not  be  protected.  He  must 
L  know  the  huts  where  poor  men  lie,  and  the  chores  which  poor  men 

109  "Emerson   as   an   American"   in   The   Genius  and  Character  of  Emerson, 

p.  68. 

no  Literary  World,  XI,  177- 


82  EMERSON 

<io.  ...  Take  him  out  of  his  protections.  .  .  .  Plant  him  down 
among  farmers,  firemen,  Indians,  and  emigrants.  Set  a  dog  on  him; 
set  a  highwayman  on  him;  try  him  with  a  course  of  mobs ;  send  him  to 
Kansas,  to  Pike's  Peak,  to  Oregon ;  and,  if  he  have  true  faculty,  this 
may  be  the  element  he  wants,  and  he  will  come  out  of  it  with  broader 
wisdom  and  manly  power"  (VI,  247,  248). 

It  is  the  turn  of  the  poor  man  to  point  his  finger  at  the  pampered  rich, 
and  to  claim  Emerson  as  his  very  own !    But  Emerson's  desire  regarding 
rich  and  poor  alike  is  "to  draw  individuals  out  of  them" : 
i  " 

"The  mass  are  animal,  in  pupilage,  and  near  chimpanzee.  But  the 
units  whereof  this  mass  is  composed,  are  neuters,  every  one  of  which 
may  be  grown  to  a  queen-bee.  .  .  .  To  say  then,  the  majority  are  wicked, 
means  no  malice,  no  bad  heart  in  the  observer,  but  simply  that  the  major 
ity  are  unripe,  and  have  not  yet  come  to  themselves,  do  not  know  their 
opinion"  (VI,  239,  240). 

6  This,  then,  is  all  a  part  of  Emerson's  extreme  individualism.  His 
./attitude  toward  the  State  is  to  be  wholly  explained  by  his  belief  in  the  ul 
timate  value  of  each  member  of  the  commonwealth  either  in  actuality  or 
in  potentiality.  And  as  freedom  is  the  last  reach  of  his  eudsemonism,  if 
I  read  Emerson's  Ethics  aright,  so  freedom  for  the  individual  should  be 
the  final  purpose  of  the  State ;  and  to  apply  this  axiom  is  the  purpose  of 
all  Sociology.  This  attitude  Emerson  takes  in  his  Journal  as  early  as 
1827:  "Wise  men  perceive  that  the  advantage  of  the  whole  is  best  con 
sulted  in  consulting  the  real  advantage  of  the  particular"  (J.  II,  174)  ; 
and  he  is  still  saying  the  same  thing  in  his  Second  Series  of  Essays  in 
1844:  "The  only  interest  for  the  consideration  of  the  State  is  persons 
.  .  .  the  highest  end  of  government  is  the  culture  of  men"  (III,  195). 
But  whether  this  should  result  in  a  democratic  or  monarchial  form  of 
government,  in  socialism  or  in  anarchy,  he  is  not  so  sure.  With  one  who 
persists  in  seeing  both  sides  of  every  question  it  is  inevitable  that  there 
should  be  statements  looking  in  each  direction. 

"Every  human  society"  writes  Emerson  in  his  Journal,  "wants  to  be 
officered  by  a  best  class  .  .  .  who  are  adorned  with  dignity  and  accom 
plishments"  ( J.  VIII,  99)  ;  yet  the  fact  remains  that  "thousands  of  human 
beings  may  exercise  toward  each  other  the  grandest  and  simplest  senti 
ments  as  well  as  a  knot  of  friends,  or  a  pair  of  lovers"  (J.  Ill,  221).  In 
his  English  Traits  Emerson  has  much  to  say  regarding  the  artificiality, 
inequality,  and  even  tyrannical  nature  of  the  English  social  system :  "The 
feudal  character  of  the  English  state,  now  that  it  is  getting  obsolete, 
glares  a  little,  in  contrast  with  the  democratic  tendencies.  The  inequality 
of  power  and  property  shocks  republican  nerves"  (V,  166).  But  before 


THE   INDIVIDUAL  AND  THE  STATE  83 

r 

he  is  done,  the  other  side  of  the  matter  claims  his  attention :  'The  Amer 
ican  system  is  more  democratic,  more  humane ;  yet  the  American  people 
do  not  yield  better  or  more  able  men,  or  more  inventions  or  books  or 
benefits  than  the  English.  Congress  is  not  wiser  or  better  than  Parlia 
ment.  France  has  abolished  its  suffocating  old  regime,  but  is  not  re 
cently  marked  by  any  more  wisdom  or  virtue"  (V,  290).  In  one  mood  he 
can  say,  "I  am  thankful  that  I  am  an  American  as  I  am  thankful  that  I 
am  a  man"  (J.  Ill,  189)  ;  and  in  another  mood,  ''Any  form  of  govern 
ment  would  content  me  in  which  the  rulers  were  gentlemen"  (J.  VI,  446). 
And  all  of  this  means  merely  that  the  individual  is  of  prime  importance, 
and 

"The  state  may  follow  how  it  can, 
As  Olympus  follows  Jove"  (IX,  74). 

At  times  this  attitude  leads  Emerson  to  the  position  made  famous 
by  Rousseau:  "As  if  the  Union  had  any  other  real  basis  than  the  good 
pleasure  of  a  majority  of  the  citizens  to  be  united"  (I,  368)  ;  and  this 
leads  on  into  occasional  statements  of  frank  and  open  anarchy:  "Hence 
the  less  government  we  have  the  better.  ...  To  educate  the  wise  man 
the  State  exists,  and  with  the  appearance  of  the  wise  man  the  State  ex 
pires"  (III,  206).  Asked  by  his  English  friends  if  any  American  had  an 
idea  of  the  right  future  of  this  country,  he  thought  not  of  the  statesmen 
who  would  make  America  another  Europe,  but  "of  the  simplest  and 
purest  minds ;  I  said,  'Certainly  yes ; — but  those  who  hold  it  are  fanatics 
of  a  dream  which  I  should  hardly  care  to  relate  to  your  English  ears,  to 
which  it  might  be  only  ridiculous, — and  yet  it  is  the  only  true.'  So  I 
opened  the  dogma  of  no-government  and  non-resistance"  (V,  272). 

Consistent  individualism  is  bound  to  end  in  anarchy.  But  all  the  con-  \^ 
notation  of  that  word  is  foreign  to  Emerson's  nature ;  and  his  principle 
of  "non-resistance"  renders  his  principle  of  "no-government"  quite  in 
nocent  and  harmless.  At  times  a  threat  lurks  in  the  shadow :  the  prin 
ciple  of  church  and  state  is  wrong,  he  says  boldly  in  his  Journal,  and 
vitiates  charity  and  religion ;  but  "I  persist  in  inaction  .  .  .  until  my  hour 
comes"  (J.  V,  294).  And  after  he  has  refused  to  join  in  Ripley's  Brook 
Farm  experiment  he  seems  to  excuse  his  own  conscience  by  saying,  "I 
do  not  wish  to  remove  from  my  present  prison  to  a  prison  a  little  larger. 
I  wish  to  break  all  prisons"  (J.  V,  473)- 

The  same  attitude  shows  in  what  he  has  to  say  regarding  the  pri 
vate  ownership  of  land.  His  whole  sympathy,  says  Salter,  was  with  the 
rising  tide  of  social  democracy.111  "Whilst  another  man  has  no  land, 

111  International  Journal  of  Ethics,  XIII,  414. 


84  EMERSON 

my  title  to  mine,  your  title  to  yours,  is  at  once  vitiated"  (I,  224).  He 
even  goes  so  far  as  to  say,  or  to  sing,  rather, 

"None  shall  rule  but  the  humble, 
And  none  but  Toil  shall  have"  (IX,  175). 

Yet  on  the  other  hand,  when  Thoreau  inveighed  against  private  prop 
erty  Emerson  wrote  in  his  Journal,  "I  defended,  of  course,  the  good  in 
stitution  as  a  scheme"  (J.  V,  128)  ;  and  while  protesting  that  the  philo 
sophic  class  need  no  possessions  he  points  out  that  others  do,  because 
property  is  their  certificate  of  merit.  "It  is  very  cruel  of  you  to  insist, 
because  you  can  very  well  forego  them,  that  he  shall"  (J.  IV,  244).  The 
heart  of  his  address  on  "Man  the  Reformer"  is  contained  in  the  sen 
tences:  "Every  man  ought  to  stand  in  primary  relations  with  the  work 
of  the  world;  ought  to  do  it  himself,  and  not  to  suffer  the  accident  of  his 
having  a  purse  in  his  pocket,  or  his  having  been  bred  to  some  dishonor 
able  and  injurious  craft,  to  sever  him  from  those  duties.  .  .  .  Why  needs 
any  man  be  rich  ?  Why  must  he  have  horses,  fine  garments,  handsome 
apartments,  access  to  public  houses  and  places  of  amusement?  Only  for 
want  of  thought"  (I,  229,  232)  ;  whereas  the  essay  on  "Wealth,"  pub 
lished  some  twenty  years  later,  is  largely  the  elaboration  of  his  opening 
contention  that  every  man  "is  by  constitution  expensive,  and  needs  to  be 
rich"  (VI,  85). 

And  again  all  this — one  grows  ashamed  to  say  the  same  thing  over 
so  many  times — means  merely  that  property  is  justified  or  is  not,  accord 
ing  as  the  individual  reaches  his  highest  selfhood  through  it  or  by  the 
want  of  it.  "Do  you  complain  of  the  laws  of  Property?  It  is  pedantry 
to  give  such  importance  to  them.  Can  we  not  play  the  game  of  life  with 
these  counters,  as  well  as  with  those?  in  the  institution  of  property,  as 
well  as  out  of  it?"  (Ill,  249). 

With  regard  to  all  the  institutions  of  society,  therefore,  the  test  is 
the  highest  good  of  the  individual.  Should  the  United  States  government 
be  upheld  when  it  is  threatened  by  civil  war?  By  all  means.  "It  would  ' 
be  a  pity  to  dissolve  the  Union  and  so  diminish  immensely  every  man's 
personal  importance"  (J.  VI,  495).  Then  should  its  laws  be  sacred  and 
implicitly  followed?  By  no  means!  "Every  actual  state  is  corrupt. 
Good  men  must  not  obey  the  laws  too  well.  .  .  .  Any  laws  but  those 
which  men  make  for  themselves  are  laughable"  (III,  199,  205).  And 
not  only  the  state,  but  "the  world  exists  for  the  education  of  each  man. 
...  He  must  sit  solidly  at  home,  and  not  suffer  himself  to  be  bullied 
by  kings  or  empires,  but  know  that  he  is  greater  than  all  the  geography 
and  all  the  government  of  the  world"  (II,  14). 


THE   INDIVIDUAL  AND  THE  STATE  85 

Yet  it  is  patent  that  "institutions  .are  renovated  only  by  combining 
independence  and  actual  separateness"  into  some  form  of  union  (J.  VI, 
297)  ;  that  while  "the  Spirit  detaches  you  from  all  association"  (p.  300), 
it  is  still  the  Spirit  which  "makes  society  possible"  (II,  264)  ;  and  hence 
while  Emerson  "will  not  sign  a  paper  [and]  abdicate  my  freedom"  (J. 
Ill,  385),  he  fully  recognizes  the  value  of  the  community  and  of  civiliza 
tion,  especially  as  it  is  this  very  thing  which  makes  possible  his  independ 
ent  way  of  living  (J.  II,  400)  ;  he  recognizes  that  what  is  best  for  the 
individual  is  in  reality  "the  good  of  all'  (X,  183),  that  we  earn  our  bread 
"by  the  hearty  contribution  of  our  energies  to  the  common  benefit"  (I, 
235),  but  the  fundamental  fact  is  always  that  "the  union  is  only  perfect 
when  all  the  uniters  are  isolated.  .  .  .  Each  man,  if  he  attempts  to  Join 
himself  to  others,  is  on  all  sides  cramped  and  diminished  of  his  propor 
tion"  (III,  253).  If  the  individual  wears  the  yoke  of  the  multitude's 
opinion,  then  there  is  no  more  freedom  in  this  tyranny  than  in  that  of 
kings. 

That  combining  of  men,  therefore,  which  is  instinctive  in  them,  must 
go  on,  but  must  be  for  the  sake  of  the  individuals  who  make  up  the  com 
bination.  It  must  never  be  for  the  sake  of  the  product  but  for  the  sake 
of  the  producer  only  that  a  man  should  forfeit  his  right  to  "the  amount 
of  manual  labor  which  is  necessary  to  the  maintenance  of  a  family"  (I, 
230).  "I  would  not  have  the  laborer  sacrificed  to  the  result, — I  would 
not  have  the  laborer  sacrificed  to  my  convenience  and  pride,  nor  to  that 
of  a  great  class  of  such  as  me.  Let  there  be  worse  cotton  and  better 
men"  (I,  184).  Nor  should  the  man  of  letters  or  the  philosopher  sep 
arate  himself  from  health-giving  toil,  even  if  this  "indisposes  and  dis 
qualifies  for  intellectual  exertion.  .  .  .  Better  that  the  book  should  not 
be  quite  so  good,  and  the  book-maker  abler  and  better"  (I,  230,  231).--""? 

The  few  passages  in  Emerson  which  have  a  socialistic  cast  are  there-^ 
fore  just  as  individualistic  as  his  most  anarchistic  statements.  "If  prop 
erties  of  this  kind  [music  and  works  of  art]  were  owned  by  states,  towns, 
and  lyceums,  they  would  draw  the  bonds  of  neighborhood  closer.  .  .  . 
The  public  should  step  into  the  place  of  these  [feudalistic  European] 
proprietors,  and  provide  this  culture  and  inspiration  for  the  citizen"  (VI, 
98) .  Emerson  believes  that  there  should  be  fair  play  and  an  open  field— 
an  equal  scope  for  every  creature  (IV,  30)  ;  that  in  his  highest  stage 
man  is  devoted  "no  longer  to  the  service  of  an  individual,  but  to  the  com 
mon  good  of  all  men" ;  that  we  must  not  insist  on  such  "coarse  local  dis 
tinctions  as  those  of  nation,  province,  or  town"  (V,  147)  ;  that  "Society 
is  barbarous  until  every  industrious  man  can  get  his  living  without  dis 
honest  customs"  (VI,  85)  ;  that  "we  make  by  distrust  the  thief,  and  bur- 


86  EMERSON 

glar,  and  incendiary,  and  by  our  court  and  jail  we  keep  him  so"  (I,  240)  ; 
that  therefore  "the  very  prison  [should  be]  compelled  to  maintain  itself 
and  yield  a  revenue,  and,  better  still,  made  a  reform  school  and  a  manu 
factory  of  honest  men  out  of  rogues"  (VII,  29)  ;  that  the  unemployed 
poor  cost  as  much  in  our  taxes  for  poor-rates  as  if  we  paid  them  wages 
(VI,  108).  But  all  these  comments,  which  are  the  commonplaces  of 
many  a  socialistic  writer,  are  isolated  expressions  of  a  generous  sentiment 
backed  by  an  unwavering  belief  in  the  prime  value  of  the  individual  man. 
Emerson's  inherent  antagonism  to  all  socialistic  schemes  of  reform 
is  best  shown  in  considering  his  relation  to  the  Brook  Farm  experiment. 
He  wished  "to  be  made  nobly  mad"  by  Ripley's  appeal ;  and  when  he  de 
cided  not  to  go  into  the  association,  it  was,  as  he  wrote  to  Ripley,  "reluc 
tantly,  and  I  might  almost  say  with  penitence."  But  though  he  always 
extended  his  sympathy  and  was  a  frequent  and  most  interested  visitor, 
Emerson's  whole  philosophy  was  in  opposition  to  the  plan.  There  are  too 
many  references  in  the  Journals  and  throughout  his  works  and  corre 
spondence  to  include  even  a  fair  representation  of  the  passages  which 
illustrate  his  attitude  toward  Brook  Farm;  but  it  should  now  be  fully 
apparent  what  his  attitude  would  necessarily  be.  All  that  could  surprise 
one  is  the  delicious  vein  of  humor  running  through  almost  all  of  these 
references. 

When  the  earlier,  idealistic  period  of  Brook  Farm  was  succeeded  by 
the  more  formidable,  overtly  socialistic  period, — that  is,  when  the  ideas 
of  Fourier  were  taken  over  and  Brook  Farm  became  a  "phalanx"  in  the 
universal  system, — Emerson's  tone  changed  from  good-natured  raillery 
to  open  hostility.  Fourierism  he  calls  "the  sublime  of  mechanics"  (X, 
,,348)  ;  and  when  he  says  in  other  connections,  "Souls  are  not  saved  in 
[j  bundles"  (VI,  205^  or  "Our  society  is  encumbered  by  ponderous  machin 
ery"  (II,  130), /he  is  showing  the  same  attitude  that  he^always  held  re 
garding  all  forcing  of  the  individual  by  artificial  means. 7  In  an  article 
in  The  Dial  for  July,  1842,  entitled  "Fourierism  andTnV  Socialists,"  112 
he  says  on  behalf  of  those  who  opposed  the  change  at  Brook  Farm :  "Our 
I  feeling  was  that  Fourier  had  skipped  no  fact  but  one,  namely,  Life." 
Couldn't  Fourier  know,  he  asks,  a  little  farther  on,  that  "a  similar  model 
lay  in  every  mind,  and  that  the  method  of  each  associate  might  be  trusted, 
as  well  as  that  of  his  particular  committee?"  And  in  the  lecture  on 
"New  England  Reformers,"  after  stating  somewhat  ironically  the  purpose 
of  such  communities,  he  continues:  "Yet  it  may  easily  be  questioned 
.  .  .  whether  such  a  retreat  does  not  promise  to  become  an  asylum  to 
those  who  have  tried  and  failed,  rather  than  a  field  to  the  strong;  and 

112  Republished  in  Uncollected  Writings.    N.  Y. :   The  Lamb  Pub.  Co. 


BROOK  FARM  87 

whether  the  members  will  not  necessarily  be  fractions  of  men,  because 
each  finds  that  he  cannot  enter  it  without  some  compromise.  Friendship 
and  association  are  very  fine  things,  and  a  grand  phalanx  of  the  best  of 
the  human  race,  banded  for  some  catholic  object ;  yes,  excellent ;  but 
remember  that  no  society  can  ever  be  so  large  as  one  man.  He,  in  his 
friendship,  in  his  natural  and  momentary  associations,  doubles  or  multi 
plies  himself;  but  in  the  hour  in  which  he  mortgages  himself  to  two  or 
ten  or  twenty,  he  dwarfs  himself  beyond  the  stature  of  one"  (III,  251). 

I  trust  that  what  I  have  said  sufficiently  indicates  that  it  was  not  his 
lack  of  human  sentiment,  his  aloofness  and  coldness,  that  kept  Emerson 
out  of  the  Brook  Farm  association,  but  rather /the  fundamental  consist 
ency  of  his  thought.  But  does  this  answer  as  well  for  his  isolation  and  \ 
apparent  indifference'regarding  the  other  reform  movements  of  the  time  ?  « 
We  can  scarcely  claim  that.  For  was  not  the  greatest  of  all — the  freeing 
of  the  slaves — due  largely  to  the  very  Emersonian  determination  to  give 
the  black  man  the  chance  to  develop  his  independent  individuality?  Did 
not  the  temperance  advocates  endeavor  to  place  other  enslaved  individuals 
in  command  of  themselves?  Were  not  those  earliest  stirrings  on  behalf 
of  "women's  rights"  quite  as  much  for  the  freedom  of  the  individual? 
And  was  not  this  the  case  as  well  with  other  movements  with  which  so 
many  of  Emerson's  associates  were  identified  ? 

In  the  first  place,  Emerson  -did  not  remain  apart  from  the  practical 
work  of  the  world  to  anything  like  the  extent  that  he  is  sometimes  ac-  I 
cused  of  doing.     He  attended  the  first  national  convention  held  for  the 
political  emancipation  of  women ;    he  attended  town  meetings  and  de 
bated  in  a  most  interested  way  on  good  roads,  honest  tax  collection,  the 
distribution  of  public  money,  and  the  faithful  performance  of  public  ser 
vice;113  and  so  closely  did  he  finally  become  associated  with  the  anti- 
slavery  movement  that  Chapman  says  he  sent  ten  thousand  sons  to  the 
war. 

But  Emerson  was  never  an  agitator,  and  with  reason.     His  fellow 
Transcendentalists  were  for  the  most  part  swept  off  their  feet  by  the 
various  appeals  of  the  time;  but  to  have  been  moved  as  they  were  would 
have  shown  in  Emerson  no  fundamental  conviction  in  his  main  beliefs. 
For  if  the  things  which  called  for  reform  in  politics  and  in  civilization  j 
itself  should  move  us  to  rage  and  despair,  are  we  not  impeaching  the  • 
divine  order,  and  losing  faith  in  the  great  evolving  moral  law?     Carlyle  < 
saw  the  variableness  of  appearance,  for  all  his  railing  against  our  con 
cerning  ourselves  with  the  "surfaces"  of  things,  until  he  seemed  to  be 
come  blinded  to  the  underlying  unity  of  the  eternal  Good,  and  this  re- 


113  Minot  J.  Savage,  in  the  New  York  Tribune  for  May  25,  1903. 


\ 


I 


88  EMERSON 

suited  in  his  pronounced  pessismism ;  but  Emerson  never  lost  his  hold  on 
what  to  him  were  the  fundamentals.  Somehow,  he  felt,  these  horrors 
which  we  see  must  come  into  accord  with  the  scheme  of  things,  and  that 
must  never  be  scattered  and  identified  with  them. 

Thus  Carlyle  writes  to  Emerson  :114  "You  seem  to  me  in  danger  of 
dividing  yourselves  [the  editors  of  The  Dial]  from  the  fact  of  this  pres 
ent  universe,  in  which  alone,  ugly  as  it  is,  can  I  find  any  anchorage,  and 
soaring  away  after  Ideas,  Beliefs,  Revelations,  and  such  like, — into  peril 
ous  altitudes  as  I  think.  ...  It  is  the  whole  Past  and  the  whole  Future, 
this  same  cotton-spinning,  dollar-hunting,  canting  and  shrieking,  very 
wretched  generation  of  ours.  Come  back  into  it,  I  tell  you."  And  Emer 
son  answers,  somewhat  later:115  "Of  what  you  say  now  and  heretofore 
respecting  the  remoteness  of  my  writing  and  thinking  from  real  life 
,  .  .  I  do  not  know  what  it  means.  If  I  can  at  any  time  express  the  law 
and  the  ideal  right,  that  should  satisfy  me  without  measuring  the  diver 
gence  from  it  of  the  last  act  of  Congress."  And  in  an  earlier  letter, 
written  when  the  fervor  of  his  philosophic  impulse  was  at  its  height,118 
Emerson  says :  "My  whole  philosophy — which  is  very  real — teaches  ac 
quiescence  and  optimism." 

That,  therefore,  which  restrained  Emerson  from  rushing  into  this 
and  the  other  reform,  was  primarily  his  firm  belief  that  "the  whole  frame 
of  things  preaches  indiiTerency"  (III,  62)  ;  "that  a  higher  law  than  that 
of  our  will  regulates  events ;  that  our  painful  labors  are  unnecessary  and 
fruitless"  (II,  132)  ;  "that  there  is  no  need  of  struggles,  convulsions,  and 
despairs,  of  the  wringing  of  the  hands  and  the  gnashing  of  the  teeth; 
that  we  miscreate  our  own  evils.  .  .  .  Nature  will  not  have  us  fret  and 
fume.  She  does  not  like  our  benevolence  or  our  learning  much  better 
than^she  likes  our  frauds  and  wars.  When  we  come  out  of  the  caucus, 
or  the  bank,  or  the  Abolition-convention,  or  the  Temperance-meeting,  or 
the  Transcendental  club  into  the  fields  and  woods,  she  says  to  us,  "So 
hot?  my  little  Sir'  "  (II,  129). 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  this  bland  optimism  is  somewhat  mad 
dening  at  times,  when  one  feels  deeply  the  need  of  definite  and  aggressive 
action.  It  is  small  comfort,  when  one  is  smarting  under  the  injustice  of 
p  certain  special  conditions,  to  be  told  that  "it  is  only  the  finite  that  has 
_ wrought  and  suffered;  the  infinite  lies  stretched  in  smiling  repose" 
(II,  126)  !  But  this  is  Emerson's  first  answer  to  the  charge  of  indiffer- 
ency  to  practical  duties.  "As  soon  as  a  man  is  wonted  to  look  beyond 

^Correspondence,  vol.  II,  pp.  n,  12. 

115  Ib.,  p.  85. 

116  31  July,  1841.     Correspondence,  vol.  I,  p.  367. 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD   REFORMS  89 

surfaces,  and  to  see  how  this  high  will  prevails  without  an  exception  or 
an  interval,  he  settles  himself  into  serenity.  .  .  .  We  need  not  assist  the 
administration  of  the  universe"  (III,  269).  But  the  other  side  of  this 
matter  was  too  obvious  for  Emerson  to  be  wholly  blind  to  it:  While 
"the  solar  system  has  no  anxiety  about  its  reputation"  (VI,  194),  we 
must  somewhat  concern  ourselves  with  our  own  reputations ;  and  al 
though  ''there  is  a  tendency  in  things  to  right  themselves"  (VI,  242),  yet 
on  the  other  hand  "the  fact  that  I  am  here  certainly  shows  me  that  the 
Soul  has  need  of  an  organ  here"  (II,  154).  The  individual  cannot  real 
ize  himself  without  reacting  properly  upon  his  environment : 

"Freedom's  secret  wilt  thou  know? 
Right  thou  feelest,  rush  to  do"  (VI,  204). 

Inasmuch,  then,  as  "the  sentiment  never  stops  in  pure  vision,  but  will 
be  enacted"  (X,  104),  and  "our  duty  requires  us  to  be  the  very  hands  of 
this  guiding  sentiment  and  work  in  the  present  moment,"  we  cannot  make 
Emerson's  optimistic  belief  that  things  will  come  out  right  in  the  end 
equivalent  to  a  mere  fatalistic  doctrine  of  laissez-faire,  but  we  must  seek 
farther  for  the  full  explanation  of  his  neglect  of  much  that  he  might  ap 
parently  have  done.  There  is  something  to  be  said  by  way  of  extenuation 
in  what  Professor  James  called  "his  fidelity  to  the  limits  of  his  gen 
ius ;"  117  and  Emerson  himself  freely  admits  from  time  to  time  that  he 
would  gladly  have  performed  more  and  greater  tasks.  He  records  feel 
ing  a  sense  of  shame  and  guilt  at  his  avoidance  of  the  appeals  of  tem 
perance,  anti-slavery,  etc.,  but  adds :  ("I  cannot  do  all  these  things,  but 
these  my  shames  are  illustrious  token  that  I  have  strict  relations  to  them 
all"  (J.  IV,  371)  ;  and  moreover,  the  "good  intention,  which  seems  so 
cheap  beside  this  brave  zeal,  is  the  back-bone  of  the  world"  (J.  IV,  301). 
Like  Mary,  the  optimistic  sister  of  the  industrious  Martha,  Emerson 
chose  the  better  part  for  himself.  But  he  does  not  deceive  himself  with 
this  self-exoneration.  It  is  easy  and  pleasant  to  lecture  on  anti-slavery, 
he  tells  himself  in  his  Journal,  and  leave  someone  else  to  do  your  duty  at 
home  (J.  VI,  534) ! 

At  times  Emerson  does  seem  to  place  his  own  individuality  above 
the  more  generous  call  of  service  to  humanity;  he  seems  to  be  an  indi 
vidualist  at  the  expense  of  others.  With  delightful  humor  he  puts  this 
reversal  of  conventional  altruism  in  favor  of  an  almost  Nietzschean  self- 
assertion:  "I  once  asked  a  clergyman  in  a  retired  town,  who  were  his 
companions?  what  men  of  ability  he  saw?  He  replied  that  he  spent  his 
time  with  the  sick  and  the  dying.  I  said  he  seemed  to  me  to  need  quite 


117  Memories  and  Studies,  p.  23. 


90  EMERSON 

\  other  company"  (VI,  250)  !  The  essay  on  Friendship  exhibits  something- 
of  this  same  attitude.  There  should  be  small  consideration  for  the  feel 
ings  of  the  friend,  he  teaches  by  implication,  if  the  friendship  jeopardizes 
one's  own  intellectual  independence;  or,  as  Professor  L.  W.  Smith,  in 
comparing  Emerson  with  Ibsen  and  Nietzsche,  expresses  this  type  of  in 
dividualism,  "One  must  not  permit  himself  to  be  materially  hindered  by 
consideration  for  others."  118  "One  would  think,"  says  Vernon  Lee,  "were 
it  not  for  the  evidence  of  a  hundred  scattered  utterances  of  most  deli 
cate  loving-kindness,  that  Emerson  was  a  fierce  intellectual  egotist  like 
Abelard."  119  But  no  one  who  has  read  and  loved  his  Emerson  could 
seriously  think  of  him  as  other  than  most  generous,  most  considerate  and 
kind,  however  much  his  personal  selfhood  might  need  defense  from  the 
multifarious  appeals  of  this  and  that  reform.  Only,  the  individual  must 
not  be  lost  in  the  issue.  The  test  is,  "if  we  keep  our  independence,  yet 
do  not  lose  our  sympathy"  (VI,  20).  By  all  means  let  us  have  reform 
when  it  educates  the  individual  (VII,  28,  29).  But  we  must  not  be 
swept  out  of  our  own  orbit. /And  we  must  conserve  our  strength;  who 
would  deny  that?  "A  man's  income  is  not  sufficient  for  all  things.  If 
he  spends  here,  he  must  save  there"  (J.  IV,  301). 

But  in  the  case  of  anti-slavery  Emerson  encountered  a  reform  which 
dwarfed  the  pretensions  of  any  individual.  Here  was  an  appeal  which  no 
thoughtful  citizen  could  escape ;  and  it  was  particularly  urgent  upon  one 
who  made  freedom  the  last  reach  of  the  soul's  progress.  Mere  freedom 
from  physical  fetters  was  of  course  of  the  least  consequence.  "I  have 
quite  other  slaves  to  free  than  these  negroes,"  he  wrote  in  his  Journal  as 
late  as  1852,  "to  wit,  imprisoned  thoughts  far  back  in  the  minds  of  men." 
And  more  openly,  in  his  "Lecture  on  the  Times,"  in  1841 :  "How  trivial 
seem  the  contests  of  the  abolitionist,  whilst  he  aims  merely  at  the  circum 
stance  of  the  slave.  Give  the  slave  the  least  elevation  of  religious  senti 
ment,  and  he  is  no  slave"  (I,  266).  But  it  were  sophistry  and  the  most 
foolish  of  paradoxes  to  pretend  that  liberty  was  not  better  both  for  the 
individual  and  the  race  than  bondage  could  ever  be ;  and  Emerson  knew 
well  enough  that,  however  superior  to  circumstance  he  might  hold  him 
self,  he  could  no  more  dodge  this  issue  than  the  most  matter-of-fact  of 
his  comrades.  He  knew  at  first  hand  the  horrors  of  slavery  from  his 
stay  in  South  Carolina  and  Florida,  in  1826;  he  was  humane  by  nature; 
and  never  the  least  afraid  of  that  hostility  and  opprobrium  which  silenced 
many  a  northern  minister  who  would  otherwise  have  spoken  on  behalf 
of  freedom.  During  his  incumbency  at  Second  Church,  Boston,  from 


"8  Popular  Science  Monthly,  LXXVIII,  149. 
119  Contemporary  Review,  LXVII,  348. 


ANTI-SLAVERY  91 

1829  to  1833,  ne  opened  his  church  freely  to  anti-slavery  meetings,  which 
was  then  an  heroic — almost  a  desperate — thing  to  do.  "Waldo  invited 
me  to  be  his  guest  in  the  midst  of  my  unpopularity,"  writes  Harriet  Mar- 
tineau,  referring  to  the  stormy  year  of  1836.  "He  has  spoken  more 
abundantly  and  boldly,  the  more  critical  the  times  became."  12°  And  in 
deed  there  is  nothing  more  interesting  in  the  Journals  than  the  record  of 
Emerson's  growing  response  to  the  call  of  the  Abolitionists. 

One  other  consideration,  may  be  mentioned,  though  this  applies  to 
Emerson's  attitude  toward  reforms  of  all  kinds  and  not  to  anti-slavery  in 
particular.  "His  objection  to  all  reform,"  says  Professor  Woodberry, 
"which  he  always  looked  at  dubiously  in  the  concrete,  was  its  partial  and 
particular  nature."  121  Emerson  himself  puts  it  much  more  strongly : 
"He  who  aims  at  progress  should  aim  at  an  infinite,  not  at  a  special  ben 
efit.  .  .  .  There  is  no  end  to  which  your  practical  faculty  can  aim,  so 
sacred  and  so  large,  that,  if  pursued  for  itself,  will  not  at  last  become 
carrion  and  an  offense  to  the  nostril"  (I,  205). 

Therefore,  when  Emerson  says,  "I  cannot  afford  to  be  irritable  and 
captious,  nor  to  waste  all  my  time  in  attacks"  (III,  249),  he  is  not  so 
much  excusing  himself  as  accusing  his  friends.  "The  Reform  of  Re 
forms,"  he  writes,  "must  be  accomplished  without  means.  ...  I  think 
the  work  of  the  reformer  as  innocent  as  any  other  work  that  is  done 
around  him ;  but  when  I  have  seen  it  near,  I  do  not  like  it  better.  It  is 
done  in  the  same  way,  it  is  done  profanely,  not  piously;  by:  management, 
by  tactics  and  clamor. __ It  is  a  buzz  in  the  ear"  (I,  263,  264).  Now  there 
are  two  ways  of  reforming  men :  by  force,  and  by  persuasion ;  by  law, 
and  by  precept ;  by  coercion,  and  by  love.  Emerson  has  the  temerity  to 
propose  to  us  in  all  seriousness  that  "the  way  to  mend  the  bad  world  is  to 
create  the  right  world"  (VI,  214)  ;  that  our  task  is  "to  tend  to  the  cor 
rection  of  flagrant  wrongs  by  laying  one  stone  aright  every  day"  (I, 
235  )  ;  that  "the  remedy  for  all  blunders,  the  cure  of  blindness,  the  cure 
of  crime,  is  love"  (VI,  208).  "The  power_of  love,  as  the  basis  of  a 
State,"  he  says  with  charming  naivete,  "has  never  been  tried"  (HI,  209). 

Regarding  the  freeing  of  the  slaves,  therefore,  Emerson  long  held 
to  the  hope  that  this  good  might  come  by  the  force  of  love  instead  of 
through  hatred  and  murder — as  who  would  not  ?  If  only  the  slave-owners 
would  realize — as  surely  they  soon  must — how  desirable  freedom  would 
be  for  the  slave,  and  how  beneficial  to  their  own  souls  the  granting  of  it, 
they  must  inevitably  release  these  groping  seekers  after  liberty ;  and  how 
much  better  that  would  be  than  if  they  were  compelled  to  relinquish  the 


^Autobiography,  vol.  I,  p.  375- 
121  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  p.  69. 


92  EMERSON 

slaves  against  their  will !  "To  wish  for  war  is  atheism"  he  writes  in  his 
Journal  (J.  VI,  203),  and  he  determined  that  he  would  "confide  to  the 
^end  in  spiritual  not  in  carnal  weapons"  (J.  VI,  104).  It  is  true  that  when 
war  had  become  a  necessity,  he  admitted  that  "there  are  times  when  gun 
powder  smells  good,"  and  his  optimism  triumphed  in  the  reflection  that  the 
unawakened  man  might  find  great  benefits  from  it:  "If  war  with  his 
cannonade  .  .  .  can  set  his  dull  nerves  throbbing,  and  by  loud  taps  on 
the  tough  chrysalis  can  break  its  walls  and  let  the  new  creature  emerge 
erect  and  free, — make  way  and  sing  paean"  (VI,  158).  But  this  was 
merely  taking  the  bull  by  the  horns.  So  far  as  he  has  any  theory  regard 
ing  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  the  work  of  practical  reform,  it  seems 
to  be  that  one  should  make  of  himself  a  shining  example;  let  him  love 
his  neighbor;  and  therj  all  menrJ^Lccording  tn  their  own  possibilities, 
would  work  out  their  individuajjsalvations,  the  Spirit  determining^  that 

L  this  must  be  in  the  right  direction_and  to  a  perfecl^a^xxaripliiibjiifiit  in 
course  of  time.  "Let  the  soul  be  erect  and  all  things  will  go  well." 
''Whenever  I  find  my  dominion  over  myself  not  sufficient  for  me,  and  un 
dertake  the  direction  of  [my  neighbor]  also,  I  overstep  the  truth,  and 
come  into  false  relations  with  him"  (III,  204).  "This  is  the  remedy  for 
all  ills,  the  panacea  of  nature.  We  must  be  lovers  and  at  once  the  im 
possible  becomes  possible.  .  .  .  Let  our  affection  flow  out  to  our  fellows ; 
it  would  operate  in  a  day  the  greatest  of  all  revolutions.  .  .  .  Let  the 
amelioration  of  our  laws  of  property  proceed  from  the  concession  of  the 
rich,  not  from  the  grasping  of  the  poor"  (I,  239).  The  "rich  young 
man"  was  advised  to  sell  all  he  had  and  give  to  the  poor,  and  Emerson 
would  consider  the  advice  eminently  practical;  no  doubt  it  was, — but 
still  the  young  man  "went  away  sorrowful."  Emerson's  prescription  for 
the  world's  woes  did  not  really  differ  from  that  of  Jesus.  "He 
taught  us  how  to  live,"  says  Edward  Everett  Hale  ;122  "and  he  did  so  be 
cause  he  lived  himself" — in  which,  as  in  other  ways,  he  reminds  us  of 
Chaucer's  Parson.  Theodore  Parker  "flung  himself,  sword  in  hand,  into 
the  thick  of  the  conflict,"  says  James  Freeman  Clarke;123  "but  ...  the 
power  of  Emerson  to  soften  the  rigidity  of  time-hardened  belief  was  far 
the  greater.  It  is  the  old  fable  of  the  storm  and  the  sun."  And  so  far 
as  Emerson  did  enter  into  the  conflict,  that  is  to  be  accounted  for  by  a 
sentence  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Sterling.124  "The  problems  of  reform" 

,  he  wrote,  as  far  back  as  1840,  "are  losing  their  local  and  sectarian  char 
acter,  and  becoming  generous,  profound,  and  poetic." 

122  op.  cit.,  p.  258. 

123  Nineteenth  Century  Questions,  p.  247. 

124  Correspondence,  p.  31. 


EDUCATION  93 

It  would  need  no  ghost  new  risen  from  the  ground  to  tell  us  that 
there  was  one  reform  to  which  Emerson  could  give  himself  with  complete 
consistency.  "What  we  call  our  root-and-branch  reforms,"  he  says,  "of 
slavery,  war,  gambling,  intemperance,  is  only  medicating  the  symptoms. 
We  must  begin  higher  up,  namely,  in  Education"  (VI,  136).  Imme 
diately  after  his  little  book.  Nature,  Emerson  gave  his  magnificent  ad 
dress  on  "The  American  Scholar,"  so  justly  called  by  Holmes  "our  in 
tellectual  Declaration  of  Independence ;"  and  his  later  lecture  on  "Edu 
cation"  (X,  123-156),  says  Edwin  D.  Mead,  "is  Jhe_jno^yjUal,  pregnant 
and  stimulating  word  upon  general  education  which  has  been  written  by 
an  American1."  In  "both  cases  Emerson's  purpose  is  constructive  re 
form, — in  the  first  instance  fundamental,  in  the  second  more  specific.  In 
these,  as  in  the  many  other  passages  where  the  matter  of  education  is 
touched  upon,  Emerson  regards  education  as  "the  .only  sure  means  of 
permanent  and  progressive  reform" — to  quote  the  words  of  President 
Emeritus  Eliot.125  Indeed,  our  whole  consideration  of  this  subject  could 
lead  us  to  no  other  conclusion.  "His  message,  therefore,"  says  Kuno 
Francke,  "while  fully  accepting  Fichte's  appeal  for  self-surrender  of  pri 
vate  interests^  to  public  purposes,  culminated  not  in  the  demand  of  con 
centration,  but  in  the  demand  of  expansion  of  the  individual."  126  And 
what  means  for  this  expansion  of  the  individual  is  there  other  than  by 
substituting  for  the  present  cramping  and  confining  system  of  education 
a  wise,  all-round,  and  "natural"  method  ? 

There  is  no  need  for  an  analysis  of  Emerson's  theory  of  education. 
What  he  has  said  on  this  subject  is  not  cryptic  but  perfectly  open  and 
clear,  and  there  are  no  apparent  inconsistencies  to  be  resolved.  One  has 
only  to  read  the  lecture  on  "Education"  to  fit  its  various  contentions  into 
the  general  scheme  of  Emerson's  thinking  which  has  now  been  analyzed 
with  some  fulness.  And  such  other  notes  as  one  finds  in  the  Journals, 
the  Correspondence,  and  the  collected  Works  only  substantiate  these 
views. 

One  question,  however,  might  be  asked:  How  is  Emerson's  insist 
ence  upon  the  necessity  of  manual  labor  and  scientific  and  technical  train 
ing  as  a  basis  for  education  consistent  with  his  belief  that  "the  spirit  only 
can  teach"  (I,  132)  ?  On  the  one  hand  he  anticipates  Horace  Mann  in 
some  of  his  definite  and  practical  reforms ;  on  the  other  he  derives  from 
Pestalozzi  (whom  he  frequently  quotes  in  his  Journal),  in  believing  that 
"no  man  is  able  or  willing  to  help  any  other  man"  (J.  II,  483),  since 
"every  man  must  learn  in  a  different  way,"  namely,  by  self -education,  and 


^Atlantic  Monthly,  XCI :   846. 

126  German  Ideals  of  To-Day,  p.  119. 


94  EMERSON 

"in  reality  there  is  no  other"  (p.  521).  But  it  would  be  a  wilful  bor 
rowing  of  trouble  to  find  any  essential  difficulty  here.  The  development 
of  all  a  man's  faculties  is  in  a  way  a  mechanical  means  of  expanding 
his  personality  and  of  making  him  more  capable  of  receiving  truth  from 
above.  "  "Pis  inhuman  to  want  faith  in  the  power  of  education,  since  to 
ameliorate  is  the  law  of  nature"  (VI,  135)  ;  but  at  the  same  time  "we 
feel  that  a  man's  talents  stand  in  the  way  of  his  advancement  in  truth" 
(II,  270) -J— when  they  are  cultivated  for  their  own  sake.  On  the  prac 
tical  side,,  "Education  makes  man  prevail  over  circumstance"  (J.  V, 
441)  ;  on  trie  spiritual  side  the  object  of  education  is  to  remove  obstruc 
tions  and  let  natural  force  have  free  play  (J.  Ill,  416). 

Hence  the  trouble  with  our  colleges  is  that  they  "foster  an  eminent 
talent  in  any  youth.  If  he  refuse  prayers  and  recitations,  they  will  tor 
ment  and  traduce  and  expel  him,  though  he*  were  a  Newton  or  Dante" 
(J.  VII,  56).  There  is  &po  much  machineryjin  our  educational  system; 
we  lose  the  central  reality  and  graduate  a  dunce  (J.  Ill,  275).  So 
»  strongly  does  Emerson  insist  upon  the  «$u]Deriority__pf  instinct  over  culture 
I  (XII,  34),  of  genius  over  talent  (II,  270),  which  are  alike  merely  the 
transcendence  of  the  "Reason"  over  the  "Understanding,"  that  one  some- 
l  times  feels,  with  Sadler,127  that  he  neglected  the  side  of  discipline ;  and 
indeed  to  impose  discipline,  even  upon  a  child,  did  seem  to  Emerson  a 
going  beyond  one's  just  prerogative.  The  child,  he  always  believed, 
would  instruct  the  teacher  as  to  the  best  method  of  procedure,  and  this, 
of  course,  could  never  be  by  coercion.  But  accuracy,  system,  drill, — 
these  were  by  no  means  omitted  from  Emerson's  educational  scheme.  To 
each  he  pauses  to  render  tribute  (X,  145;  VI,  114;  VI,  77)  ;  but  these 
were  always  secondary,  obvious,  and  not  in  need  of  special  emphasis. 
He  notes  the  disciplinary  value  of  mathematics  and  the  languages ;  it  is 
only  when  they  ceased  to  have  any  "strict  relation  to  science  and  culture" 
and  "became  stereotyped  as  Education"  (J.  VI,  289),  that  he  objects  to 
their  crowding  out  of  more  vital  and  practical  subjects. 

127  Educational  Review,  XXVI :   459. 


EMERSON'S  ESTHETICS  95 


CHAPTER  X. 
EMERSON'S  ESTHETICS:  THE  MEANING  OF  BEAUTY;  THE  UTILITY  OF  ART. 

It  is  rather  surprising  that  Emerson  should  have  so  little  of  value  to 
offer  us  by  way  of  an  esthetic  theory,  since  he  was  primarily  a  poet,  and  his 
idealism  was  a  complete  system  which  reached  into  all  the  essential  divis 
ions  of  philosophy.  What  his  esthetic  theory  would  necessarily  be  has 
already  become  apparent  to  anyone  (if  there  is  any  such  person!)  who 
has  read  thus  far  in  this  essay.  This  is  a  tribute  to  Emerson's  funda 
mental  consistency,  but  not  to  the  depth  of  his  thinking.  One  could  not 
read  the  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  and  the  Critique  of  Pure  Practical 
Reason,  and  then  produce  the  Critique  of  Judgment,  however  consistent 
a  part  it  may  be  of  the  Critical  Philosophy.  But  Emerson's  basic  doc 
trine  of  Intuition  and  his  Puritanical  ancestry  predetermined  all  he  had  to 
say  regarding  the  meaning  of  beauty  and  the  utility  of  art. 

Emerson's  ideas  regarding  beauty  and  art  are  among  the  first  to  find 
expression  in  his  Journals.  But  even  earlier  than  the  theory  are  the 
critical  judgments  which  are  the  logical  if  anticipatory  conclusions  of 
that  theory,  and  they  are  not  modified  as  the  theory  becomes  formulated. 
He  asserts  that  Wordsworth's  "noble  distinction  is  that  he  seeks  the 
truth"  (J.  II,  430)  ;  whereas  he  is  "frigid  to  the  Byrons"  (J.  IV,  324), 
Tennyson  he  regards  as  "a  beautiful  half  of  a  poet,"  128  and  to  Shelley  he 
refers  so  frequently  and  with  such  animosity  that  it  would  seem  he  enter 
tained  a  religious  aversion  to  all  "art  for  art's  sake."  Later  he  becomes 
more  tolerant :  Shelley  is  good  for  others,  so  must  not  be  overlooked,  and 
Tennyson  is  good  by  one  test — that  he  has  a  "liberating"  effect  on  us  (J. 
VI,  115,  218).  It  is  the  same  with  his  judgment  of  fiction.  At  the  age 
of  twenty-one  he  writes  in  his  Journal  that  one  portion  of  the  world's 
literature  "seems  specially  intended  for  coxcombs  and  deficient  persons. 
To  this  department  belong  the  greatest  part  of  Novels  and  Romances" 
(J.  II,  13).  Scott's  Bride  of  Lammermoor  appealed  to  him  because  of 
the  nobility  and  symbolic  significance  of  the  characters  (J.  II,  371), 
whereas  he  was  angry  at  having  become  so  interested  in  Quentin  Dur- 
ivard  that  he  read  it  through ;  he  "had  been  duped  and  dragged  after  a 
foolish  boy  and  girl,  to  see  them  at  last  married  and  portioned,  and  I  in- 

128  Letter  to  Furness,  1838,  in  the  letter's  Records  of  a  Lifelong  Friendship, 
p.  7- 


96  EMERSON 

stantly  turned  out  of  doors."  Had  one  noble  thought,  one  sentiment  of 
God  been  spoken  by  them,  he  felt  that  he  would  not  have  been  thus  ex 
cluded  (J.  V,  515).  Dickens  succeeds  because  "monstrous  exaggeration 
is  an  easy  secret  of  romance"  (J.  VI,  312),  and  all  "antiques" — as  those 
of  Landor,  Goethe,  Coleridge,  Scott — are  "paste  jewels"  (J.  VI,  400). 
His  judgment  is  the  same  regarding  all  the  arts.  Let  one  striking  in 
stance  stand  for  the  rest.  Speaking  of  the  ballet  between  the  acts  at  a 
certain  performance  he  reflects  that  "Goethe  laughs  at  who  can't  admire 
a  picture  as  a  picture.  So  I  looked  and  admired,  but  felt  it  were  better 
for  mankind  if  there  were  no  such  dancers;"  and  he  feels,  moreover, 
that  God  agrees,  since  most  of  them  are  nearly  idiotic  (J.  Ill,  113)  ! 

These  estimates  of  literature  and  the  other  arts  would  have  been 
exactly  what  they  are  though  Emerson  had  never  had  a  philosophic  or 
esthetic  theory.  Indeed,  Emerson  could  not  in  sincerity  have  formulated 
any  system  of  esthetics  which  would  not  have  yielded  just  such  results 
as  these,  however  logically  consistent  it  might  have  been.  These,  to  him, 
were  the  facts ;  and  the  test  of  any  theory  was  that  it  should  explain  the 
facts  (I,  10).  What,  then,  does  Emerson  believe  must  be  the  underlying 
basis  of  truth  of  which  these  facts  are  the  outcroppings  ? 

Emerson  attempts  no  definition  of  beauty,  warned,  he  says,  by  the 
failure  of  many  philosophers  who  have  attempted  it  (VI,  274)  ;  but  no 
modern  thinker,  says  Morley,  makes  so  much  of  the  place  of  beauty  in  the 
scheme  of  things.129  This  is  because  he  regards  beauty  as  the  truest  rev 
elation  of  the  mystery  of  nature.130  "In  the  eternal  trinity  of  Truth, 
Goodness,  and  Beauty,  each  in  its  perfection  including  the  three,  [the 
Transcendentalists]  prefer  to  make  Beauty  the  sign  and  head.  .  .  .  We 
call  the  Beautiful  the  highest,  because  it  appears  to  us  the  golden  mean, 
escaping  the  dowdiness  of  the  good  and  the  heartlessness  of  the  true" 
(I,  334,  335).  "The  new  virtue  which  constitutes  a  thing  beautiful  is  a 
certain  cosmical  quality,  or  a  power  to  suggest  relation  to  the  whole 
world,  and  so  lift  the  object  out  of  a  pitiful  individuality.  Every  natural 
feature, — sea,  sky,  rainbow,  flowers,  musical  tone — has  in  it  somewhat 
which  is  not  private  but  universal,  speaks  of  that  central  benefit  which  is 
the  soul  of  Nature,  and  thereby  is  beautiful.  .  .  .  All  beauty  points  at 
identity.  .  .  .  Into  every  beautiful  object  there  enters  somewhat  immeas 
urable  and  divine  .  .  .  Beauty  hiding  all  wisdom  and  power  in  its  calm 
sky"  (VI,  287-290). 

The  perception  of  such  Beauty  is  of  course  an  act  of  the  Intuition,  and 


129  Crit.  Misc.,  vol.  I,  p.  330. 

130  See  "The  Poems  of  Emerson"  by  C.  C.  Everett,  in  Essays  Theological  and 
Literary. 


THE  MEANING  OF  BEAUTY  97 

its  contemplation  belongs  to  the  Reason  and  not  to  the  Understanding. 
"Every  man  parts  from  that  contemplation  [of  the  universal  and  eternal 
beauty]  with  the  feeling  that  it  rather  belongs  to  ages  than  to  mortal 
life"  (II,  256).  From  this  conies  its  ethical  relationship,  and  from  that 
in  turn  its  practical  utility  when  embodied  in  the  form  of  art.  From  the 
very  start  Emerson  insists  upon  this  aspect  of  it:  "Beauty  is  the  mark 
God  sets  upon  virtue"  (I,  25)  ;  and  to  this  aspect  of  it  he  constantly  re 
turns  :  "All  high  beauty  has  a  moral  element  in  it,  and  I  find  the  antique 
sculpture  as  ethical  as  Marcus  Antoninus"  (VI,  290). 

It  follows  that  "nothing  is  quite  beautiful  alone ;  nothing  but  is  beau 
tiful  in  the  whole.  A  single  object  is  only  so  far  beautiful  as  it  suggests 
this  universal  grace.  .  .  .  The  world  thus  exists  to  the  soul  to  satisfy 
the  desire  of  beauty"  (I,  29).  In  its  last  analysis,  Emerson  regards  this 
perception  of  the  beauty  of  the  totality  of  things  as  an  ethical  and  re 
ligious  matter,  though  he  sometimes  speaks  of  it  more  humanly  as  an  act 
of  reflection,  of  thought,  or  even  by  the  esthetically  technical  term 
"imagination."  "When  the  act  of  reflection  takes  place  in  the  mind,"  he 
says  somewhat  vaguely,  "when  we  look  at  ourselves  in  the  light  of 
thought,  we  discover  that  our  life  is  embosomed  in  beauty"  (II,  125). 
"Things  are  pretty,  graceful,  rich,  elegant,  handsome,  but,  until  they 
speak  to  the  imagination,  not  yet  beautiful"  (VI,  287).  But  the  imag 
ination  which  creates  this  final  beauty  as  an  interpretation  of  the  uni 
verse  is  just  as  necessary  in  order  to  perceive  any  individual  object  as 
beautiful ;  and  this  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  "not  in  nature  but 
in  man  is  all  the  beauty  he  sees"  (II,  140).  Every  schoolboy  has  noticed 
that.  The  squeak  of  a  bicycle  on  a  lonely  road  mistaken  for  the  note  of 
a  bird  in  the  bushes  was  piercingly  beautiful  until  it  was  recognized,  when 
it  became  piercingly  annoying.  Yet  it  remained  the  same  sound.  A 
philosopher  who  finds  the  primary  qualities  of  objects  existent  in  the  per 
ceiving  mind  need  not  register  his  conviction  that  beauty  does  not  exist 
in  the  things  themselves.  This  familiar  discovery,  which  Emerson  seems 
to  have  first  found  stated  in  1823— "The  theory  of  Mr.  Alison,  assign 
ing  the  beauty  of  the  object  to  the  mind  of  the  beholder,  is  natural  and 
plausible"  (J.  II,  304)— he  connected  definitely  with  his  idealism:  "We 
animate  what  we  see,  and  we  see  only  what  we  animate.  ...  It  depends 
on  the  mood  of  the  man  whether  he  shall  see  the  sunset  or  the  fine 
poem"  (III,  54). 

In  his  poems,  particularly  in  the  "Ode  to  Beauty."  Emerson  develops 
these  and  kindred  ideas,  but  I  find  no  new  phases  of  his  thinking  in 
them.  "Each  and  All'  is  perhaps  his  best  statement  of  the  thought  that 
the  individual  object  gets  its  beauty  from  its  relation  to  the  whole.  But 


98  EMERSON 

without  discounting  the  high  value  of  this  and  many  other  poems  of 
Emerson,  one  may  still  look  to  his  prose  for  the  most  adequate  account 
of  his  actual  thinking.  This  is  the  more  remarkable  inasmuch  as  Emer 
son  holds  that  "Poetry  preceded  prose  as  Reason,  whose  vehicle  poetry 
is,  precedes  the  Understanding"  (J.  Ill,  492)  ;  and  he  constantly  speaks 
of  the  poet  as  the  inspired  bringer  of  truth  to  men.  But  this  is  using 
poetry  in  its  largest  sense ;  it  is  identifying  poetic  inspiration  with  all 
mystical  intuition, — as  Emerson  frankly  does.  "This  is  Instinct,  and  In 
spiration  is  only  this  power  excited,  breaking  its  silence"  (XII,  32). 

Now  as  "Instinct,"  as  he  is  here  calling  it,  "has  a  range  as  wide  as 
human  nature,  running  all  over  the  ground  of  morals,  of  intellect,  and  of 
sense"  (XII,  33),  so  "the  poet,  like  the  electric  rod,  must  reach  from  a 
point  nearer  the  sky  than  all  surrounding  objects,  down  to  the  earth,  and 
into  the  dark  wet  soil"  (XII,  226).  There  is  nothing  new  about  this 
conception  of  the  man  of  genius  as  the  mediator  between  the  highest  and 
the  most  commonplace,  except  the  mystical  coloring  which  Emerson  gives 
it.  On  the  one  hand,  "when  it  [the  Over-Soul]  breathes  through  his  in 
tellect,  it  is  genius"  (II,  255)  ;  on  the  other  hand,  "to  believe  that  what 
is  true  for  you  in  your  private  heart  is  true  for  all  men, — that  is  genius" 
(II,  47).  By  the  doctrine  of  Intuition,  as  has  been  noted  earlier  in  this 
essay,  all  men  may  enter  into  a  first-hand  relationship  with  the  source  of 
wisdom;  but  there  are  many  who  prefer  to  dwell  on  the  lower  levels  and 
who  must  therefore  learn  of  the  finer  spirits  who  yield  themselves  to  the 
reception  of  truth.  It  is  the  converse  of  the  same  matter  to  say,  "What 
are  these  millions  who  read  and  behold,  but  incipient  writers  and  sculp 
tors?  Add  a  little  more  to  that  quality  which  now  reads  and  sees,  and 
they  will  seize  the  pen  and  chisel,"  and  "Common  sense  ...  is  the  basis 
of  genius,  and  experience  is  hands  and  feet  to  every  enterprise ;  and  yet," 
Emerson  hastens  to  add,  "he  who  should  do  his  business  on  this  under 
standing  would  be  quickly  bankrupt"  (III,  68,  69). 

Emerson's  doctrine  of  inspiration  differs  from  Plato's,  as  brought 
out  in  the  Ion  and  elsewhere,  only  in  its  greater  insistence  upon  the  prac 
tical  usefulness  of  the  message  and  in  that  the  "some  god"  of  Socrates 
becomes  definitely  the  Over-Soul  itself.  To  Plato  he  is  careful  to  attrib 
ute  the  thought  that  "poets  utter  great  and  wise  things  which  they  do  not 
themselves  understand"  (II,  37),  which  he  has  'paraphrased  in  the 
familiar  lines  from  "The  Problem," 

"He  builded  better  than  he  knew; 
The  conscious  stone  to  beauty  grew." 

But  this,  like  the  ethical  purpose  of  poetry,  is  with  Emerson,  as  with 
Plato,  a  mere  corollary  of  the  inspiration  theory. 


DOCTRINE  OF  INSPIRATION  99 

His  fellow  Transcendentalists  shared  with  Emerson  his  belief  in  in 
spiration,  but  did  not  always  share  his  saving  sense  of  humor.  Jones 
Very,  sending  some  of  his  poems  and  essays  to  Emerson,  wrote,  "I  am 
glad  to  transmit  what  has  been  told  me  of  Shakespeare.  You  hear  not 
mine  own  words,  but  the  teaching  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  131  Emerson 
escapes  such  egotism  by  making  his  statements  of  this  sort  impersonal— 
"All  writing  comes  by  the  grace  of  God"  (III,  71) — and  by  fully  recog 
nizing  that  the  individual  does  not  cease  to  be  himself  when  he  is  the 
recipient  of  a  revelation.  Indeed,  he  goes  so  far  as  to  say,  "To  believe 
your  own  thought,  that  is  Genius"  (J.  IV,  55),  "A  meek  self-reliance  I 
believe  to  be  the  law  and  constitution  of  good  writing"  (J.  Ill,  550),  and 
"What  we  say,  however  trifling,  must  have  its  roots  in  ourselves,  or  it 
will  not  move  others"  (J.  II,  505). 

"Genius"  therefore  "is  religious,"  because  "it  is  a  larger  imbibing  of 
the  common  heart.  It  is  not  anomalous,  but  more  like  and  not  less  like 
other  men.  There  is  in  all  great  poets  a  wisdom  of  humanity  which  is 
superior  to  any  talents  they  exercise"  (II,  270).  Hence  it  is  no  contra 
diction  for  this  believer  in  mystical  inspiration  to  say,  "If  you  would 
learn  to  write,  'tis  in  the  street  you  must  learn  it"  (VII,  16).  The 
bringer  of  the  message  must  resolve  in  himself  the  dualism  between  the 
truth  he  receives  and  the  people  to  whom  he  gives  it,  by  identifying  him 
self  both  with  the  original  giver  and  the  last  receiver.  "A  painter  told 
me  that  nobody  could  draw  a  tree  without  in  some  sort  becoming  a  tree" 
(II,  21 )  ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  "Perhaps,  if  we  should  meet  Shake 
speare  we  should  not  be  conscious  of  any  steep  inferiority ;  no,  but  of  a 
great  equality, — only  that  he  possessed  a  strange  skill  of  using,  or  classi 
fying  his  facts,  which  we  lacked.  For  notwithstanding  our  utter  in 
capacity  to  produce  anything  like  Hamlet  and  Othello,  see  the  perfect 
reception  this  wit  and  immense  knowledge  of  life  and  liquid  eloquence 
find  in  us  all"  (II,  310). 

This  is  no  more  than  to  say,  when  we  bring  it  down  to  the  terms  of 
literary  criticism,  that  idealism  is  the  method  of  all  art, — that  the  subject 
must  pass  through  the  writer's  or  artist's  personality, — only  Emerson  in 
sists  that  since  intuition  is  an  act  of  piety  the  man  of  genius  must  neces 
sarily  be  a  "pious"  man.  At  the  age  of  twenty-three  he  mentions  piety 
as  one  of  the  attributes  of  the  "genuine  bard"  (J.  II,  106)  :  and  before 
he  is  yet  twenty  he  finds  that  there  is  a  "tendency  in  the  passions"  which 
"seems  to  consist  in  the  pleasure  of  finding  out  a  connection  between  a 
material  image  and  a  moral  sentiment"  (J.  I,  105).  One  would  think 
that  a  man  who  took  so  didactic  a  view  of  art  would  be  narrow  beyond 


131  Cooke's  Poets  of  Transcendentalism,  p.  12. 


100  EMERSON 

belief  in  his  literary  and  artistic  judgments;  but  though  Emerson  is 
somewhat  blind  to  the  sheer  beauty  of  such  a  man  as  Shelley,  no  one  ever 
had  a  finer  appreciation  of  the  glory  which  is  Shakespeare.  This  is  some 
what  because  of  Emerson's  recognition  of  Shakespeare's  supreme  art — 
"his  principal  merit  is  that  he  can  say  what  he  will"  (IV,  19) — but  much 
more  because  Emerson  could  not  avoid  putting  such  an  ethical  interpre 
tation  upon  whatever  appealed  to  him  that  he  instinctively  gave  the  most 
Christian  coloring  to  the  most  pagan  of  men.  One  often  smiles  at  his. 
bundling  together  of  some  half-dozen  worthies  who  were  as  far  sep 
arated  spiritually  as  they  were  historically.  Misery  never  made  such 
strange  bedfellows  as  have  been  brought  together  by  Emerson's  glowing 
admiration.  But  while  his  taste  was  so  catholic,  his  ethical  interpretation 
of  art  was  not  compromised.  "Shakespeare,  Herrick,  Jonson  .  .  .  sug 
gest  the  endowment  of  spiritual  men"  to  such  an  extent  that  "Dante, 
Tasso,  Wordsworth  are  pale  beside  them"  (J.  II,  236)  !  Emerson  in  the 
voice  of  Genius  hears  always  the  moral  tone  even  when  it  is  "disowned 
in  words"  (X,  179).  In  saying  "Only  that  is  poetry  which  cleanses  and 
mans  me"  (J.  V,  402),  he  is  saying  not  only  that  art  is  ethical  but  also 
that  he  is  able  to  get  an  ethical  reaction  out  of  some  poetry  which  has  a 
purely  esthetic  value  for  others.  It  is  strange  that  he  remained  obdurate 
to  the  call  of  Shelley,  who  has  so  high  an  ethical  appeal  to  some  who 
take  even  Shakespeare  on  a  purely  human  level. 

According  to  Emerson,  then,  beauty  is  that  which  inheres  in  the  idea 
or  object  to  be  imitated,  and  art  is  the  expression  which  genius  is  able 
to  give  to  it.  While  beauty  is  perceived  by  the  Reason,  art  must  be 
wrought  under  the  guidance  of  the  Understanding.  Emerson  emphasizes 
the  divine  rather  than  the  human  aspect  of  art,  and  thus  he  feels  that  not 
imitation,  even  in  Aristotle's  large  meaning  of  the  term,  but  creation  is 
the  aim  of  art  (II,  327).  For  art  cannot  directly  imitate  beauty,  since 
the  Understanding  cannot  perceive  at  first  hand  what  is  revealed  only  to 
the  Reason:  "Go  forth  to  find  it  [beauty],  and  it  is  gone;  'tis  only  a 
mirage  as  you  look  from  the  windows  of  diligence"  (J.  Ill,  556)  ;  but 
"certain  minds,  more  closely  harmonized  with  nature,  possess  the  power 
of  abstracting  Beauty  from  things,  and  reproducing  it  in  new  forms.  .  .  . 
This  is  art"  (XII,  118). 

Since  "the  office  of  art  [is]  to  educate  the  perception  of  beauty'r 
(II,  329),  it  follows  that  the  principles  of  art  are  to  be  deduced  from  the 
nature  of  beauty.  It  is  because  "Beauty,  in  its  largest  and  profoundest 
sense,  is  one  expression  for  the  universe"  (I,  30)  that  "Art  should  .  .  . 
throw  down  the  walls  of  circumstance  on  every  side,  awakening  in  the 
beholder  the  same  sense  of  universal  relation"  (II,  338)  ;  it  is  because 


THE  UTILITY  OF  ART  101 

beauty  "involves  a  moral  charm"  (VI,  207)  that  "the  high  poetry  of  the 
world  from  its  beginning  has  been  ethical"  (J.  IV,  425)  ;  it  is  because 
"Beauty  rests  on  necessities"  (VI,  279),  and  "what  is  most  real  is  most 
beautiful"  (XII,  117),  that  it  is  "idle  to  choose  a  random  sparkle  here  or 
there"  (VI,  51),  and  that  when  "lively  boys  write  to  their  ear  and  eye, 
the  cool  reader  finds  nothing  but  sweet  jingles  in  it"  (III,  223)  ;  it  is 
because  "everything  is  a  monster  till  we  know  what  it  is  for  .  .  .  and 
then  the  thing  tells  its  story  at  sight  and  is  beautiful"  (J.  II,  489)  that 
"our  taste  in  building  .  .  .  refuses  pilasters  and  columns  that  support 
nothing,  and  allows  the  real  supporters  of  the  house  honestly  to  show 
themselves"  (VI,  276). 

Emerson,  then,  is  to  be  numbered  among  those  who  reduce  beauty 
to  terms  of  utility  and  adaptability,  at  least  so  far  as  beauty  appears  in 
the  form  of  art.  Conversely,  whatever  is  adequate  to  its  purpose  must 
necessarily  be  beautiful,  and  consequently  Emerson  anticipates  Kipling 
in  saying  that  the  locomotive  is  not  prosaic  but  highly  poetic  (J.  VI, 
336),  and  he  finds  that  "the  aesthetic  value  of  railroads  is  to  unite  the  ad 
vantages  of  town  and  country  life"  (VI,  142).  It  is  true  that  Beauty  is 
a  "nobler  want"  of  man  than  mere  commodity,  (I,  21),  and  that  "a  man 
is  a  beggar  who  lives  only  to  the  useful"  (VI,  152)  ;  but  the  utility  must 
still  be  there,  however  much  Emerson  may  say  in  his  little  poem,  "The 
Rhodora,"  that  "Beauty  is  its  own  excuse  for  being."  Of  course  the 
highest  utility  is  ethical,  and  when  beauty  seems  most  remote  from  the 
practical  it  may  be  nearest  to  the  spiritual.  "The  critics  who  complain 
of  the  sickly  separation  of  the  beauty  of  nature  from  the  thing  to  be 
done,  must  consider  that  our  hunting  of  the  picturesque  is  inseparable 
from  our  protest  against  false  society"  (VI,  275).  But  the  advantages 
to  be  gained  from  art  are  often  merely  practical  and  useful.  "I  think 
sculpture  and  painting  have  an  effect  to  teach  us  manners  and  abolish 
hurry"  (VI,  153)  ;  and  "novels  are  as  useful  as  Bibles  if  they  teach  you 
the  secret  that  the  best  of  life  is  conversation,  and  the  greatest  success 
is  confidence,  or  perfect  understanding  between  sincere  people"  (VI, 

i84). 

When,  therefore,  beauty  is  separated  from  utility  it  ceases  to  be 
beautiful.  "Nothing  merely  ornamental  can  be  beautiful"  (J.  IV,  88)  ; 
indeed  Emerson  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  "outside  embellishment  is  de 
formity"  (VI,  275).  Applied  in  the  province  of  literary  criticism  this 
leads  him  to  say,  "Don't  affect  the  use  of  an  adverb  or  an  epithet  more 
than  belongs  to  the  feeling  you  have"  (J.  II,  427) »  for  "the  positive  is  the 
sinew  of  speech,  the  superlative  the  fat"  (X,  160).  But  it  does  not  fol 
low  that  a  work  of  art  should  be  bare  and  stupid.  "Beauty  without  grace 


102  EMERSON 

is  the  hook  without  the  bait"  (VI,  284),  and  dullness  in  a  genius  "is  as 
insupportable  as  any  other  dullness"  (J.  VI,  359). 

Emerson  was  much  more  sensible  to  beauty  in  the  human  form  and 
in  nature  than  he  is  generally  accredited  with  being.  This  is  evidenced 
in  the  Journals  132  more  directly  and  positively  than  in  the  works  which 
have  always  been  familiar,  and  the  publication  of  the  Journals  may  in 
time  correct  this  as  well  as  other  false  impressions  regarding  him.  But 
Emerson  did  not,  apparently,  feel  any  antagonism  between  sensuous 
charm  and  moral  beauty ;  or  rather,  he  felt  that  the  separation  was  arbi 
trary  and  temporary,  and  one  which  the  soul  must  readjust.  "Whilst 
thus  the  world  will  be  whole  and  refuses  to  be  disparted,  we  seek  to  act 
partially,  to  sunder,  to  appropriate;  for  example, — to  gratify  the  senses 
we  sever  the  pleasure  of  the  senses  from  the  needs  of  the  character.  The 
ingenuity  of  man  has  always  been  dedicated  to  the  solution  of  one  prob 
lem, — how  to  detach  the  sensual  sweet,  the  sensual  strong,  the  sensual 
bright,  etc.,  from  the  moral  sweet,  the  moral  deep,  the  moral  fair.  .  .  . 
The  soul  strives  amain  to  live  and  work  through  all  things.  .  .  .  This 
dividing  and  detaching  is  steadily  counteracted.  .  .  .  Pleasure  is  taken 
out  of  pleasant  things  ...  as  soon  as  we  seek  to  separate  them  from 
the  whole"  (II,  100,  101).  Browning's  "Nor  soul  helps  flesh  more,  now, 
than  flesh  helps  soul"  must  have  appeared  to  Emerson  as  the  statement 
of  an  axiom.  He  could  scarcely  have  seen  why  Plato's  two  horses  did 
not  trot  amiably  side  by  side  along  the  highway. 

I  think  it  is  this  which  prevents  Emerson's  esthetics  from  being 
more  than  a  mere  offshoot  from  his  ethics.  He  does  not  grapple  with 
any  of  the  essential  problems  or  throw  any  new  light  upon  them.  The 
pleasure  to  be  derived  from  the  tragic,  for  example,  or  the  place  of 
ugliness  in  art,  are  questions  which  do  not  exist  for  him.  In  his  essay  on 
"The  Tragic"  he  says  blithely :  "There  are  people  who  have  an  appetite 
for  grief.  .  .  .  They  mis-hear  and  mis-behold.  .  .  .  All  sorrow  dwells  in 
a  low  region.  It  is  superficial ;  for  the  most  part  fantastic,  or  in  the  ap 
pearance  and  not  in  things"  (XII,  265).  And  in  his  essay  on  "The 
Poet":  "For  as  it  is  dislocation  and  detachment  from  the  life  of  God 
that  makes  things  ugly,  the  poet,  who  re-attaches  things  to  nature  and 
the  Whole,  .  .  .  disposes  very  easily  of  the  most  disagreeable  facts"  (III, 
23).  Of  course  he  recognzes  the  use  that  art  makes  of  tragic  material: 
"Art  lives  and  thrills  in  new  use  and  combining  of  contrasts,  and  mining 
into  the  dark  evermore  for  blacker  pits  of  night.  What  would  painter 
do,  or  what  would  poet  or  saint,  but  for  crucifixions  and  hells?  And 
evermore  in  the  world  is  this  marvelous  balance  of  beauty  and  disgust, 

132  See,  for  example,  J.  V.,  118. 


EMERSON  AS  A   POET  103 

magnificence  and  rats"  (VI,  242).  But  this  makes  no  contribution  what 
ever  to  the  underlying  problems  of  the  tragic  and  the  ugly. 

There  seems  to  be  no  way  of  establishing  the  relative  value  of  a 
poet,  and  everyone  remarks  that  comparisons  in  this  kind  are  particularly 
odious.  But  since  Matthew  Arnold  shocked  all  Boston  by  asserting  that 
Emerson,  upon  whom  he  places  the  highest  of  values,  was  still  neither 
philosopher  nor  poet,  and  this  has  passed  by  his  authority  into  something 
of  a  tradition,  I  may  be  pardoned  for  setting  beside  it  three  opinions  on 
the  other  side.  Hermann  Grimm  regarded  Emerson  as  "the  greatest  of  all 
living  authors ;"  Theodore  Parker  gives  him  "the  highest  place  since 
Milton;"  and  Alexander  Ireland,  who  quotes  these  judgments,  says, 
"When  the  world  is  wiser,  Emerson  will  be  owned  as  a  great  poet."  133 
Why  should  I  not  also  indulge  in  the  luxury  of  an  opinion?  From  a 
fairly  careful  reading  of  the  major  American  poets,  I  venture  the  judg 
ment  that  Emerson,  while  not  a  great  poet  in  the  strictest  sense,  should 
rank  with  Whitman  and  Poe  as  one  of  the  three  best  that  this  country 
has  produced.  His  distinguishing  excellences  are  the  height  and  depth 
of  his  thought,  the  perfect  sincerity  through  which  he  reveals  the  charm 
of  his  personality,  and  at  times  his  remarkable  response  to  the  beauty  of 
nature.  His  chief  limitations  lie  in  the  narrowness  of  his  range,  and  in 
the  haltingness  of  his  meter  and  mechanical  monotony  of  his  rhyme, 
giving  to  much  of  his  work  an  appearance  of  amateurishness  of  which 
the  most  minor  of  poets  would  be  ashamed.  And  it  is  a  proof  of  his 
authenticity  as  a  poet  that  we  should  instantly  feel  that  if  the  babblings  of 
these  bardlings  were  found  on  his  pages,  instead  of  enhancing  his  value 
they  would  actually  detract  from  Emerson's  standing  as  a  poet. 

To  a  certain  extent,  the  limitations  I  have  mentioned  are  due  to 
Emerson's  being,  as  Professor  Woodberry  calls  him,  "a  poet  of  imperfect 
faculty."  To  a  much  greater  extent  I  believe  they  are  the  direct  result 
of  his  esthetic  theory,  and  that  the  value  of  that  theory  may  somewhat  be 
tested  by  the  poetry  it  produced.  For  it  must  be  remembered  that,  from 
the  standpoint  of  technique,  Emerson's  early  verses  as  a  rule  far  surpass 
his  later  and  greater  poems.  There  is  not  a  halting  line  in  the  tentative  ef 
forts  at  verse  making  given  in  the  Journals  till  we  reach  about  the  year 
1834  and  the  poems  which  he  chose  later  to  include  in  his  collection. 
\Vith  a  more  perfect  gift  of  utterance  no  doubt  he  would  have  conveyed 
his  thought  as  well  as  he  does  without  putting  any  strain  upon  his  art; 
but  when,  as  often  happens  with  the  best  of  poets,  there  was  a  conflict 
between  art  and  thought, — the  idea  being  precisely  this  and  meter  or 
rhyme  suggesting  a  circumlocution  to  that, — Emerson  never  hesitated  to 

133  In  Memoriam:   Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  pp.  32,  37,  39. 


104  EMERSON 

put  down  the  thing  as  he  meant  it  and  let  the  meter  limp  along  as  best  it 
could.  For  the  idea  was  the  inspiration,  was  it  not?  and  the  meter  and 
rhyme  were  no  more  than  the  Understanding's  method  of  decking  out 
what  the  Reason  had  perceived  in  one  of  its  great  silences.  They  should 
not  be  abandoned,  as  Whitman  abandoned  them,  because  they  were  the 
conventional  graces  which  established  a  community  of  feeling  between 
the  poet  and  the  reader;  but  the  moment  that  they  asserted  any  claim 
of  their  own  they  became  an  offense  and  a  hindrance.  What  Emerson 
does  not  seem  to  have  laid  to  heart  in  this  connection  is  that 

"Tasks  in  hours  of  insight  willed 
May  be  through  hours  of  gloom  fulfilled." 

Perhaps  he  did  not  dare  tamper  with  what  the  spirit  had  said  to  him ; 
perhaps  he  was  more  eager  to  supply  new  messages  than  to  polish  and 
correct  the  old  ones ;  perhaps  he  had  that  fear  of  mere  art,  of  "rhetoric," 
which  all  men  of  deep  sincerity  have  shared.  When,  as  in  the  little  poem 
called  "The  Snow  Storm,"  the  thought  is  merely  pretty  and  poetic  the 
art  is  fully  adequate ;  and  in  proportion  as  the  thought  is  high  the  ex 
pression  is  (in  general)  inadequate.  If  Emerson  had  chosen  to  work 
over  his  poems  as  Tennyson  worked  over  his,  he  might,  perhaps,  have 
been  as  fine  a  poet  as  Tennyson ;  but  those  who,  as  Matthew  Arnold 
puts  it,  "would  live  in  the  spirit"  would  have  missed  something  infinitely 
more  precious. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

All  of  the  material  given  in  the  standard  Riverside  Edition  of  Emer- 

dVVn    ,      '  T^  With  additi°nal  matter'  in  the  Center^ 
,  edited  with  introductions  and  notes  by  Edward  Waldo  Emerson 

Both  these  editions,  as  well  as  the  Journals,  are  published  by  Houghton' 
Mifffin  &  Co-  A  later  volume  of  "Uncollectcd  Writings"  was  published 
Ihe  Lamb  Publishing  Company  (New  York).  Emerson's  Corre 
spondence  with  Carlyle,  with  Sterling,  and  with  Grimm  has  also  been 
published.  Additional  letters  are  given  in  Furness's  "Records  of  a  Life 
long  Friendship."  Besides  these,  there  is  Emerson's  contribution  to  the 
Memoirs  of  Margaret  Fuller  Ossoli. 

A  full  bibliography  of  Emerson  by  George  Willis  Cooke  was  pub 
lished  in  1908  (Houghton).  The  criticisms  published  since  then  may  be 
found  in  the  A.  L.  A.  indices  and  publishers'  catalogues,  and  it  has  seemed 
unnecessary  to  list  them.  With  the  exception  of  a  few  articles  in  some 
of  the  less  known  periodicals  and  newspapers,  the  writer  has  had  access 
to  all  of  these  criticisms,  and  those  which  have  seemed  of  especial  value 
have  in  one  way  or  another  found  mention  in  the  text  or  footnotes.  The 
Index  of  Xames  will  therefore  supply  the  place  of  a  completer  bibliog 
raphy.  A  selected  list  of  books  and  articles  is  given. 

Alcott,  Amos  Bronson :     Ralph  Waldo  Emerson :   Philosopher  and  Seer. 
Boston:   Cupples,  Hurd,  1888. 

Alexander,  James  Waddel:     Review  of  Emerson's  First  Series  of  Essays 

in  Princ.  R.  13:   539.     1841. 

American  Review:     "Emerson  and  Transcendentalism,"  1:233.     l&45- 
Arnold,  Matthew:     Discourses  in  America.     Macmillan,  1885. 

Bartol,  Cyrus  A.:     "Emerson's   Religion"  in  Genius  and  Character  of 
Emerson. 

Bowen,    Francis:      Review   of  Nature  in   Christian   Examiner  21:371. 

1837- 
Brann,  Henry  A.:     "Hegel  and  his  Xew  England  Echo"  in  Cath.  W. 

41:56.    1885. 
Cabot,  James  Elliot :     A  Memoir  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.    Houghton, 

1887. 
Chapman,  John  Jay :     Emerson  and  Other  Essays.     New  York :    Scrib- 

ners,  1898. 
Conway,   Moncure  Daniel :     Emerson  at   Home  and  Abroad.     Boston : 

Osgood,  1882. 


106  EMERSON 

Cooke,  George  Willis :     Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  :   His  Life,  Writings,  and 

Philosophy.    Houghton,  1882. 
Dewey,   John:      "The   Philosopher   of   Democracy"   in   Internal.   J.   of 

Ethics,  13:405. 
Dugard,    M. :     Ralph   Waldo   Emerson,   Sa   vie   et   son  oeuvre.      Paris : 

Libraire  Armand  Colin,  1907. 

Button,  J.  F. :     "Emerson's  Optimism"  in  Unitar.  R.  35:127.     1891. 
Eliot,  Charles  W. :     "Emerson  as  Seer"  in  Atlan.  Mo.  91  -.844.     1903. 
Emerson,  Edward  Waldo:     Emerson  in  Concord.     Houghton,  1889. 
Firkins,  Oliver  W. :     Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.    Houghton,  1914. 

Francke,  Kuno:  "Emerson  and  German  Personality"  in  German  Ideals 
of  To-day.  Houghton,  1907. 

Frothingham,  Octavius  Brooks :  Transcendentalism  in  New  England. 
New  York:  Putnams,  1876. 

Garnett,  Richard:  Life  of  Emerson.  Great  Writers  Series.  London: 
Scott,  1888. 

Genius  and  Character  of  Emerson,  edited  by  Franklin  B.  Sanborn.  Bos 
ton  :  Osgood,  1885.  Contains  notable  essays  by  friends  of  Emer 
son  in  the  Concord  School  of  Philosophy. 

Goddard,  Harold  Clarke:  Studies  in  New  England  Transcendentalism. 
Columbia  University  doctoral  dissertation.  New  York,  1908. 

Guernsey,  Alfred  Hudson :  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson :  Philosopher  and 
Poet.  New  York:  Appletons,  1881. 

Harris,  William  T. :  "The  Dialectic  Unity  in  Emerson's  Prose"  in  J.  of 
Spec.  Phil.  18:195.  1884.  "Emerson's  Philosophy  of  Nature"  in 
Genius  and  Character  of  Emerson. 

Haskins,  David  Greene:  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson:  His  Maternal  Ances 
tors,  with  some  Reminiscences  of  him.  Boston :  Cupples,  Upham, 
1887. 

Hecker,  Isaac  T. :  "Two  Prophets  of  this  Age"  in  Cath.  W.  47:684. 
1888. 

Hedge,  Frederic  Henry :  Memorial  address  in  J.  H.  Allen's  Our  Liberal 
Movement  in  Theology. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell :  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.  American  Men  of 
Letters  Series.  Boston:  Houghton,  1885. 

Ireland,  Alexander:  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson:  His  Life,  Genius,  and 
Writings.  London:  Simpkin,  Marshall,  1882. 

James,  William:     Address  on  Emerson  in  Memories  and  Studies. 

Lee,  Vernon :  "Emerson,  Transcendentalist  and  Utilitarian,"  in  Con- 
temp.  R.  67:345.  1895. 

Literary  World:  Emerson  Number,  May  22,  1880,  contains  brief  articles 
by  Hedge,  Bartol,  Higginson,  Walt  Whitman,  Curtis,  Sanborn, 
Cooke,  and  others. 

Mead,  Edwin  D. :  The  Influence  of  Emerson.  Boston:  A.  U.  A.,  1903. 
"Emerson's  Ethics"  in  Genius  and  Character  of  Emerson. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


107 


Milnes,  Richard  Monckton :     "American  Philosophy— Emerson's  Works  " 

in  Westminster  R.  33:345.     1840. 
Morley,  John:     Ralph  Waldo  Emerson:    An  Essay.     Macmillan    1884 

Also  in  Critical  Miscellanies. 

Nicoll,    William    R. :      "Ralph    Waldo    Emerson"    in    North    Amer    R 
176:675.     1903. 

O'Connor,  J.  F.  X. :     "Ralph  Waldo  Emerson"  in  Cath.  W.  27  :OXD.    1878. 

Orr,  John :     "Transcendentalism  of  New  England"  in  Internal  R  i  v  ^81 

1882. 

Parker,  Theodore:     Lecture   on  Transcendentalism,  Works,   Centenary 
Edition,  vol.  VI. 

Princeton  R.  11:95  (1839)  "Transcendentalism";    13:539  (1841)  "Pan 
theism." 

Rands,  William  B. :     "Transcendentalism  in  England,  New  England,  and 

India"  in  Contemp.  R.  29:469. 
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INDEX 


Addison,  Daniel  Dulany,  19 

Alcott,  A.  Bronson,  8,  14,  16,  62,  71 

Alexander,  J.  W.,  13 

Allen,  J.  H.,  24 

d'Alviella,  Goblet,  16 

Aristotle,  100 

Arnold,  Matthew,  103,  104 

Bain,  Alexander,  48 
Bakewell,  C.  M.,  29 
Bancroft,  George,  15 
Bartol,  Cyrus  A.,  14,  29 
Berkeley,  35 
Blake,  William,  63 
Birrell,  Augustine,  77 
Bowen,  Francis,  8,  10 
Brooks,  Van  Wyck,  28 
Browning,  102 

Brownson,  Orestes  A.,  n,  22 
Burns,  18 

Burroughs,  John,  29 
Bushnell,  Horace,  77 
Byron,  95 

Cabot,  J.  E.,  ii,  12.  23,  24,  31,  35,  42, 

57,  59,  63 

Carlyle,  16,  24,  27,  37,  80,  87,  88 
Chadwick,  J.  J.,  20 
Channing,  W.  E.,  n,  15,  17,  18-21 
Channing,  W.  E.,  (the  poet),  16 
Channing,  W.  H.,  16,  19,  20 
Clarke,  J.  R,  8,  12,  16.  20,  92 
Coleridge,  16,  20,  23,  24,  31,  37,  47,  54, 
Con  way,  M.  D.,  30,  64 
Cooke,  G.  W.,  8,  65,  105 
Cousin,  16,  21,  22,  23 
Cranch,  C.  P.,  8,  16 

Ball,  Mrs.  Caroline,  23 
Dana,  W.  R,  77 
Darwin,  45,  46 
Dewey,  John,  30 
Dickens,  8,  14,  96 


Dutton,  J.  F.,  79 
Dwight,  John  S.,  16 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  15,  18,  19 

Eliot,  Charles  W.,  93 

Emerson,  Edward  Waldo,  5,  46,  105 

Everett,  C.  C,  96 

Everett,  Edward,  15 

Fenn,  W.  W,  19 
Fichte,  10,  20,  23,  24,  35,  93 
Firkins,  O.  W.,  5,  29,  31 
Fourier.  86 
Fox,  George,  19 
Francke,  Kuno,  93 
Frothingham,  O.  B.,  9,  21 
Fuller,  Margaret,  See  Ossoli 
Furness,  W.  H.,  95 

Garnett,  Richard,  28 
Goddard,  H.  C.,  5,  14,  31 
Goethe,  62,  75,  96 
Greene,  William  B..  65 
Grierson,  Francis,  77 
Grimm,  Hermann,  30,  103 

Hale,  E.  E.,  77,  92 

Harris,  W.  T.,  71 

Harrison,  J.  S.,  31 

Hawthorne,  Julian,  80 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  7 

Hecker,  Isaac  T.,  14 

Hedge,  F.  H.,  14,  16,  17,  19,  23,  24 

Hegel,  21,  23,  41,  43.  74,  75 

Henry,  C.  S.,  22 

Herder,  45 

Higginson,  T.  W.,  16 

Hodge,  Charles,  10 

Holbeach,  H.,  64 

Holmes,  8,  28,  93 

Hopkins,  Samuel,  18,  19 

Hudson,  Thomas  J.,  63 

Hutcheson,  18 


[109] 


110 


EMERSON 


Ibsen,  27,  90 
Inge,  W.  R.,  47,  75 
Ireland,  Alexander,  103 

Jacobi,  23 

James,  William,  77,  89 

Jonson,  Ben,  12 

Jouffroy,  21 

Judd,  Sylvester,  16 

Kant,  7,  13,  1 8,  20,  21,  23,  27,  66,  95 
Kipling,  101 

Lamarck,  42 
Landor,  96 
Lee,  Vernon,  90 
Leibnitz,  47 
Linberg,  H.  G.,  22 
Locke,  14,  22,  24,  66 
Lockwood,  F.  C,  16,  31 
Lowell,  7,  16,  28 

Mann,  Horace  30,  93 
Marsh,  James,  23,  24 
Martineau,  Harriet,  91 
Maulsby,  D.  L.,  77 
Mead,  Edwin  D.,  30,  93 
More,  Paul  Elmer,  28 
Morley,  John,  96 
Miinsterberg,  Hugo,  30 

Newcomb,  Charles,  8 
Nicoll,  W.  R.,  77 
Nietzsche,  89,  90 
Norton,  Andrews,  10 

Oken,  45 
Orr,  John,  9,  16 

Ossoli,  Margaret  Fuller,   14,   16,  26,  35, 
62,  75 

Parker,  Theodore,  9,   11,  12,   14,  16,  18, 

20,  22,  29,  63,  64,  92,  103 
Payne,  W.  M.,  13 
Pestalozzi,  93 


Plato,  7,  26,  31,  42,  47,  50,  67,  98,  102 
Plotinus,  44,  71 
Poe,  103 
Porter,  Noah,  9 
Putnam,  George,  24 

Renan,  20 

Riley,  I.  Woodbridge,  5,  31 
Ripley,  George,  10,  16,  24,  83,  86 
Robertson,  J.  M.,  31 

Sadler,  M.  E.,  94 

Salter,  W.  M.,  83 

Sanborn,  Franklin  B.,  16 

Santayana,  George,  75,  78 

Savage,  Minot  J.,  87 

Saxton,  J.  A.,  9 

Schleiermacher,  23,  49 

Scott,  95,  96 

Schelling,  10,  20,  23,  24,  31,  32,  47 

Shakespeare,  12,  81,  100 

Shelley,  95,  100 

Smith,  L.  W.,  90 

Socrates,  15,  98 

Spinoza,  63,  66 

Stae'l,  Mme.  de,  20,  22 

Sterling,  John,  92 

Swift,  Lindsay,  8 

Tennyson,  95,  104 
Thoreau,  8,  16,  84 
Ticknor,  George,  15 
Tiffany,  Francis,  12 
Tyndall,  30 

Vaughan,  R.  A.,  47 
Very,  Jones,  16,  99 

Walker,  James,  15,  21,  22 
Whitman,  29,  81,  103,  104 
Wilson,  S.  Law,  30 
Wilson,  W.  D.,  10 
Woodberry,  G.  E.,  28,  91,  103 
Woodbury,  C.  J.,  9,  27 
Wordsworth,  20,  54,  95 


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